Son of Neptune
by Erin Rachel
Summary: That's a wrap, guys. If you see any loose ends in this installment of my fanfic series, inform me so that I can fix it. REVIEW!
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1: Jason

Jason woke up on a cement floor with a searing pain on the back of his head. He reached back to feel the wound and found that it was sticky with blood. Over the past months he had become accustomed to bleeding, so the wooziness he felt was in no way associated with seeing the gore on his fingers. He had experienced his share of concussions, and this was a big one.

_Uuuuuugggggg_, came a groan from a few feet away, startling him back into reality. Reyna lay on the floor in a state similar to his own. Jason tried to sit up and help her but his head throbbed, forcing him to lie back down.

"J-Jason?" Reyna called to him. "Jason, are you okay? What happened?"

Memories of his quest flooded back to him. He, Reyna, and Calvin had been on a quest to find something. And they had succeeded in finding it, only to discover that their quest had been a trap. There had been monsters waiting to ambush them the whole time!

Another voice called his name, but it wasn't Reyna. It was a jarring voice that filled his entire head.

_Jason, wake up, _it said.

_I am awake_. But even as he thought these words he could feel the world around him fading yet again into memory.

When he truly awoke a pair of brown eyes and a mouthful of hot breath greeted him.

"Whoa, way too close, man," Jason said to his friend, Leo.

"Sorry, I just had to make sure you were still breathing. I think you've been working too hard, you always look so tired," he replied, backing off a bit to allow Jason room to breathe.

"Says the kid who is building a flying boat to the boy who slept for," he glanced at his clock for a moment and did some quick mental math, "ten hours straight. If anything it's you who needs a break, not me."

"Who said anything about a break? I just said you've been working too hard. Come on, you're already late for breakfast. Luckily, I know a guy who can hook you up with the best nuts and berries around," Leo said with a smirk.

"I think I'll pass. Does this guy happen to have a tail and sometimes doesn't wear pants?"

"You got it. Get dressed and I'll meet you at the Oracle cave in ten. Rachel called together a meeting involving one freaky Roman demigod, one awesome son of Hephaestus, and one iffy daughter of Aphrodite. Among some others." With that, Leo left Jason to his thoughts.

Jason took a lightning fast shower—since lightning fast was pretty average for a son of Jupiter— and put on the normal orange camp half blood t-shirt and pants with five minutes left before the meeting. It would only take him about a minute to get to Rachel's cave, so he ended up sitting on the edge of his bed and trying not to look into the eyes of his father's statue, towering above him.

No matter where he went in his cabin there was no escaping Jupiter's (or Zeus as the Camp Half Blood demigods called him) piercing glare. Jason could not bear to be analyzed by a statue any longer than required of him, and the silence of his cabin was making him think about things he didn't want to think about. Like how in his dream he could feel that he used to care about the girl he was with. Or how even as he cared for another girl now, there was an almost palpable hole that Piper couldn't totally fill until he found Reyna and knew that she was not hurting over losing him. But now was not the time to think about that.

Jason stood and left his cabin, thinking maybe he would find Piper before he went to Rachel's cave. The Aphrodite cabin was right on the way to his destination, but he would never go inside to see if she was there. The former head of the cabin, Drew, had once had a crush on Jason and after Piper made it clear that she didn't have a chance with him, her crush became a horrible grudge.

"Looking for Piper?" asked one of Piper's younger half sisters who was standing outside the cabin. She was scrawny and pale but undeniably a daughter of Aphrodite.

"Yeah, have you seen her?" Jason answered, trying not to stare at her eyes, which where exactly the same shape and strange color as Piper's.

"She left for Rachel's cave about five minutes ago. She didn't even do her hair before she left! Sometimes I wonder if she's really one of us. Not that I'm complaining; Piper is way better than Drew."

"Um, okay. Thanks for the help," Jason said, trying to hide how little he cared about whether or not Piper did her hair.

"No problem," she answered, though Jason had already turned and took a few paces toward the cave. Jason heard her mumble something that sounded like, "Rude Roman," which made him smirk.

Leo was standing at the mouth of Rachel's cave, and he was wearing a worried expression, which was unusual for him.

"What's going on?" Jason asked when he was within earshot of Leo even when he spoke quietly.

"Rachel. One minute, she was happy, saying she was having small visions of this Percy dude at the other camp. She said that if we got the boat working then maybe she should come with us so that she could help find him, which is why she called the meeting. I think she'd almost convinced Chiron when her eyes turned that funny green color when she prophesies. Except that she didn't say a word. She just collapsed and she hasn't gotten up since."

"Why isn't she in the infirmary?" Jason asked, pushing through the beaded door that blocked him from seeing inside. The scene that greeted him was hectic. Every kid in the cave was pacing around suggesting what could be done. Chiron was standing next to the couch that Rachel was laying on, looking calm but worried.

"Do you see this room? Everyone who knows what happened is freaking out. Imagine what would happen if the whole camp knew. Chiron said that everyone here needs to keep it hush-hush until they've decided what to do."

"I still think we should try a little ambrosia," said a daughter of Hecate.

"That would just kill her, dummy." Clarisse, the head of the Ares cabin rolled her eyes.

"Well let's see you come up with something better!"

"What do you think we're trying to do, here?"

They bickered on and on, which jump-stated four other arguments among the campers. All the noise seemed to make Leo antsy, because he pulled out some gadgets and started messing with them. Leo had always been much better with machines than people.

For the first time, Jason noticed the other two people sitting next Rachel's limp body, speaking to Chiron. Annabeth wore the same worried but calm expression as Chiron, but Piper seemed a little less calm and a little more anxious. Jason walked over to them and thought about putting his hand on Piper's shoulder, but he remembered Reyna's face and awkwardly pretended that he had lifted his hand to scratch his head.

"We have medics here that are perfectly capable of caring for mortals as well as demigods," Annabeth was saying, while absently searching through a first-aid kit for anything useful. "Just because we can't use nectar and ambrosia doesn't mean we have to take her to a hospital. Really, what doctor can compare with the skills of a child of Apollo? And what if she has a prophecy while at the hospital. Who knows what could happen? She's completely unstable."

"Annabeth, whether of not our demigods are capable of taking care of Rachel isn't really the question. We only have a few more months until the summer solstice and our campers aren't even close to being prepared for the up-coming search for Percy. There's the boat to finish, and the kids in the Apollo cabin are working on storing medical supplies as well as stocking the ship with crossbows and other archery. We're all busy, but a doctor could devote herself entirely to her," Chiron explained.

"You say this like you know of a doctor who would be up to the job," Piper said.

"Of course," Chiron smiled. "An old demigod I once taught would, I'm sure, be happy to take care of her.

"Anyone we know?" Jason asked, guessing that the answer would be a surprise, as always.

"Have you heard of Clara Barton?" asked Chiron.

"As in the Clara Barton, founder of the Red Cross?" Annabeth inquired.

"And daughter of Apollo. It's a long story which followed another battle between the Roman and Greek demigods, but in the end the gods granted her immortality," Chiron explained.

Annabeth's face exploded into a rare grin. "I wish I was the lucky oracle."


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2: Jason

Rachel's absence at the campfire that night went unnoticed, because, unlike the demigods, Rachel could maintain enrollment at school without being kicked out. Most campers assumed that she had returned to the Clarion Academy to complete her senior year. Those who knew the truth found little reason to be cheery and their bleak attitude was contagious, which was why the mood reading fire burned a dull shade of amber, nearly extinguished.

Jason, Leo, Piper, and Annabeth all sat close to the dying flames, trying to soak up the last of its heat in the chilly March night. Leo was making a joke, which slowly fell flat when Chiron walked up behind them and cleared his throat.

"I need to speak to you in private," he addressed the group. They all stood up, and Jason guessed they felt just the same way he did; ready for action. It wasn't right for demigods, hardwired for battle, to sit around dying fires while there were monsters to be killed and people to be saved.

"Finally," Leo said, confirming Jason's suspicions.

"Not you, Mr. Valdez, I'll speak to you later. For now, I just need these three," Chiron gestured to Jason, Annabeth, and Piper.

"Why not? Anything you say in front of them, you can say in front of me. Right, Jason?" Leo asked. Jason would tell Leo everything of course, but to tell Chiron that would be counterproductive. Maybe Chiron would decide that Jason wasn't important enough to compromise and then both he and Leo would be stuck without hearing anything.

Chiron saved Jason from needing to say anything by speaking before he had the chance to. "This isn't about trust, Mr. Valdez, this is about your duties as sons and daughters of the gods. Your duty is to stay here."

Jason had never heard Chiron speak crossly before, but Leo seemed to take offense to it, because he sat back down, looking a little hurt. Jason cast one final glance at his friend, mouthing, _I'll tell you later_, before turning to follow Chiron. They were led to his office.

"I'm assuming you know why I brought you here?" Chiron asked. In truth, Jason had no idea, but it didn't seem to matter, because Annabeth clearly knew.

"You're sending us out to find Percy alone. We don't really need the boat to find him; we just need him once the boat is finished. You made Leo stay behind because he's head designer for the ship, but we aren't really necessary. Please tell me this isn't another quest?"

Chiron smiled, "That's exactly what it is. You three are the only three people that I trust to take on the job but aren't building a boat, and coincidentally, quests are always groups of three. It's only fitting. Jason's quest was to find Hera; Annabeth's was to reach the center of the labyrinth. The only person here who hasn't had a quest is Piper." Chiron looked at her meaningfully.

"Me? You want me to lead this? I'm not a leader, Jason is a leader. Why should I do this?" Piper asked, flustered. Normally, Piper was so collected; it disturbed Jason to see her fall apart in the face of leadership.

"You want us to go on a quest without an oracle? We're flying blind without an oracle. How will we even know where to go?" Jason asked.

"Jason, we already know that Percy is somewhere in San Francisco. Once we get there we'll use whatever memories you've recovered and we can figure it out from there," Annbeth explained. She didn't appear excited about the quest but she seemed to understand that it was important to find Percy Jackson. Or maybe she was just desperate enough to find her boyfriend that impossible tasks were feasible to her. "And Piper, you are never forced to accept quests. You can choose not to do this, but from what I've been told, you are more than capable. When I went on my quest all I had was my mind, but you have more. You're smart _and _you can charmspeak. This should be a piece of cake."

Up until the last sentence of Annabeth's argument, Jason had almost been convinced. Piper was indeed powerful and intelligent. But when Annabeth said used that ridiculous understatement her whole thought process fell into place in Jason's mind. Annabeth had no hope left except for the tiny sliver that rested in Piper. Without her, Percy Jackson was lost.

Piper seemed to have noticed the desperation in Annabeth's argument as well, and she appeared to collect herself.

"Okay. I accept," she said. "On one condition. I want to see Rachel. Someone in my cabin told me that your last oracle was in much worse shape than Rachel. Maybe she doesn't need to be awake to tell the future."

Jason had once heard that the previous oracle had been a rotting corpse. It was a frightening thought, but it wasn't nearly as bad as thinking that Rachel might forever remain in her comatose state, spewing prophecies until she decayed.

"I thought you might say that," Chiron told Piper. "We'll arrange a meeting tomorrow. Congratulations Piper McLean, on getting a quest of your very own. And good luck."

Piper groaned, clearly unhappy with the events that had just occurred.

"Whatever," she said.

"Go to your cabins and get some rest. I will inform Annabeth where we've decided you should see Rachel. Be ready by noon tomorrow."

As they left Chiron's office Jason thought about Piper. He knew that she could lead a quest, no problem, but she seemed to have no faith in herself.

"C'mon. It'll be fun to get out of here. I'm sick of being cooped up anyway," he told her. Annabeth nodded her head.

"Absolutely. Being stuck in one place for too long isn't good for us. Demigods are hardwired to have quests and things like that. You were made for this, Piper," Annabeth told her.

"I get it, guys. I really do want to leave this place; I'm just as restless as anyone else. Weren't you a little scared before you two led your quests, though? Don't worry; I'll get over it. I just feel like this is being thrown onto me but I'm not quite ready."

"You're head of your cabin and you saved me tons of times on my quest. You may not feel ready, but nobody does, from what I've heard. It's your turn to lead, but it's my turn to have your back when you're in trouble," Jason said.

She smiled nervously.

"Okay, but if we die on this quest, I'll… I'll kill you."

"Wow, that makes no sense at all."

"Piper, nobody is going to die. We're going to find Percy. I bet Jason's friends are out looking for him, too. Maybe we won't even have to go all the way to Frisco. Maybe we'll meet the Romans half way there," Annabeth said.

This statement gave Jason a new thought to ponder. What would happen when they did find the Romans? Would they expect Jason to go home with them? Jason wasn't sure he wanted that.

Then another thought occurred to him: What if Percy didn't want to come home?


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Piper

The idea that she would be leading a quest tomorrow made Piper extremely nervous, but the idea that she would be consulting her near-dead friend in order to learn her future was just as intimidating. A few months ago, Piper would have loved to know her future, but now that she knew exactly what she was, and how often her life would be at risk, the future was something Piper feared but couldn't avoid. In fact, if she could freeze time, here at the camp with Jason, Piper would do it in a heartbeat.

"Hey, are you okay?" Jason's voice spoke from behind. Piper was sitting on the edge of a dock, feet in the cold water. Late March had the tendency to be winter-cold or nice. Today was nice enough that she was comfortable next to the water, and the chill seemed to numb her confused mind somewhat.

"Nope. Well, yes. Maybe?" Piper attempted to answer. She was sort of excited for the quest after all, but it didn't stop her from being scared out of her wits. It was a curse of being the daughter of Aphrodite that made her _feel_ so much. Ever since Piper had embraced her true identity, there was no escaping all of the emotions she had, but in the end, all it did was complicate everything.

Jason sat next to her but didn't say anything. No doubt, he was going through a lot of the same feelings she was. It didn't matter that they didn't talk, though. Jason's presence was comfort enough, and words would have tainted the calm.

After a few minutes of just sitting side-by-side, Jason broke the silence.

"You know what I think about sometimes?" he asked.

"Haha, no. I have no idea what you think about. Please, tell me," Piper told him, exasperated. She had spent so much time wondering what was going on in Jason's head; it was a relief to finally get some insight.

"Well, foes are supposed to bear arms to the doors of death, right?" he asked.

Piper nodded, feeling a little confused by his train of thought.

"What if… well… I'm supposed to be the bridge connecting the Romans and the Greeks, but so is Percy Jackson. I'm supposed to lead that quest, I know it. But maybe Percy feels the same way. Think about it: we're building a flying boat. Don't you think that's a little symbolic? Flying because I'm a son of Jupiter, a boat because of the son of Poseidon."

Though Jason had failed to truly explain his idea, Piper still understood what Jason was afraid of.

"You think that you and Percy will be enemies?" Piper asked him.

"It makes sense, doesn't it? Apparently the Greeks and the Romans have butted heads every time they come together. And we were the chosen representatives, which means that we'll probably be enemies, too. I hate to say it, but maybe by the time this quest is over, I'll regret ever going on it."

Piper sighed. She had never actually considered the symbolism of a flying ship. She had known Jason would feel at home because it was in the air, but Piper hadn't given much thought to the son of Poseidon.

"Here's my theory," she explained off the top of her head, trying to say something that might comfort him. "You and Percy Jackson we're the chosen representatives because you're everything that a Roman or a Greek ought to be, but never has been. You two are both great leaders, but together, you'll be great enough to lead enemies straight to the Underworld. You guys will probably be so close that Leo and I'll start to feel a little left out."

Jason smiled, but his next words were serious.

"I would never abandon you for a friend _or_ an enemy, I promise. If anything ever comes between us, I'd never forgive myself," he vowed. Piper thought she must be paranoid, but it sounded as if Jason was trying to convince himself as well.

The sun was now almost overhead, and Piper checked her watch in order to confirm her suspicions. It said 11:49 am. She stood up and shook her wet feet, accidentally spraying Jason with water.

"Hey!" he shouted, grinning. He reached his hands into the water to get Piper wet, and she was tempted to push him into the water, but she thought better of it. Instead Piper just slipped on her shoes and informed him of the time.

He nodded, still smiling. "Lets go see Rachel."

They met Annabeth at the pavilion where everyone was eating lunch.

"Ready to go?" She asked, sounding happier than she had in days. She was finally going to do something about finding her boyfriend.

"As ready as I'll ever be," Piper answered. "Where's Chiron?"

"He's already in Rachel's cave. He made arrangements for the meeting to take place there. I even met Clara Barton, she's amazing. C'mon, you've got to meet her." Annabeth turned in the direction of the cave and Piper and Jason followed, until Piper wondered if she should lead the way.

Piper tried to walk a little faster, but then thought better of it, because they weren't even technically on their quest yet and they all knew the way to the cave. She tripped on her own foot as a result regained her balance, only to almost knock over Jason.

"Sorry," she groaned, feeling less and less confident about her leadership every minute. Leading a cabin of Aphrodite kids was one thing, but being responsible for the lives of two friends was more pressure than Piper was sure she could bear.

Piper was relieved when they finally reached the cave, giving Piper an excuse to stop thinking about how awkward the short walk to the cave was and how much worse the rest of the quest would surely be.

"Chiron? Clara?" Annabeth called inside. An older woman came to them, smiling.

"Hello, Annabeth! These must be your friends, Piper and Jason, yes?" She asked. Usually when the gods grant immortality, it's at a relatively young age, but this woman looked so old that it seemed as though she had never stopped aging, even though she couldn't die.

"Hello," Piper answered, unsure of what to call her.

"Hi, Clara," Jason said. She seemed to be comfortable being addressed by her first name, so Piper made a mental note to use it.

Clara studied Piper for a moment, looking straight into her eyes.

"I believe you're why we're here, Miss McLean?" She pointed inside toward the couch that Piper assumed Rachel would be laying on. "McLean… why does that sound familiar? No relation to the movie star, Tristan McLean?" the old woman's face lit up.

"Umm, yeah. He's my father," Piper told Clara, feeling unsure of whether of not to share the information. Ever since her dad's kidnapping that winter, Piper had made a point not to hide her identity, but it still felt wrong.

"Oh!" Clara shrieked. "He's my favorite actor! Do you think you could… oh, never mind, lets go talk to the deadbeat redhead."

Piper _did _regret telling Clara about her father, but the woman seemed to mean well, so she tried to pretend it never happened. Instead she just followed Clara to the couch on which Rachel Elizabeth Dare rested limply.

Jason tapped Piper on the shoulder. "We'll just be in the kitchen. I haven't eaten lunch yet, and you should be alone for this," he informed her.

With that, Clara, Annabeth, and Jason were gone, leaving Piper alone with Rachel.

"Rachel?" Piper asked, feeling strange. It was like talking to a wall. "Rachel, if you can hear me… can you please tell me my future. I need to know what will happen on this quest."

Rachel remained still. Of course she did. Piper never should have expected anything more; it only made the quest seem harder when her one guide disappeared. Suddenly Piper felt herself breaking down.

"I'm going to lead my friends into oblivion. We'll probably get lost and… and Jason will hate me. I'm going to lose him." Now there were tears running down her cheeks. She wondered if the others were listening to her in the kitchen, but she didn't care.

"Please, Rachel. Help me do this."

A flash of green light caught her attention, then all of the sudden, Rachel was on her feet, but she wasn't herself. An eerie green mist escaped Rachel's mouth and filled the room.

_From the half-blood haven, three demigods run,_ Piper heard a raspy voice unlike Rachel's fill her head.

_They travel to the land of the midnight sun,_

_ But when they find the thing they seek,_

_ A dear friend's heart will have grown too weak_

_ Beware, dove's daughter, of the path you desire_

_ For more than you asked for, you may find you acquire_


	4. Chapter 4

The prophecy had frightened Piper, to say the least. As she, Jason, and Annabeth had walked back from Rachel's cave, Piper recounted all that the oracle had said.

"The land of the midnight sun? But that's Alaska; not even close to San Francisco," Annabeth pondered. "And it said that we would run from our haven. I guess that could refer to the hurry we're in to find Percy, but I feel like running implies that there is an emergency. I don't understand."

"I don't either," Piper said, "but if Rachel prophesies that we are going to do something, I suggest we do it. I hate the cold weather, but since we're supposed to be going to Alaska, and I don't have any better ideas, I think we should go. Maybe we should act as if this prophecy is a map, and if everything it says happens, then we'll know we're on the right track."

"That makes sense, in a confusing sort of way," Jason said. "But it also says that by the time we find what we're looking for, a friend will die. That isn't the sort of map I like to follow."

"No, it says a friend's heart will have grown too weak. That doesn't mean that they'll die necessarily," Annabeth said, obviously trying to sound optimistic. "Prophecies are difficult things to understand. Don't try to interpret it just yet. I remember my quest. It spoke about a child of Athena's final stand, and losing a love to worse than death. Honestly, your prophecy sounds a lot less ominous than most."

"Well, that's reassuring." Piper groaned and Jason laughed. "'Less ominous than most,' is _exactly_ the way I want my future to be described as."

The three of them laughed. It was all a demigod could do in the face of his or her dark future. Piper felt complete happiness, for just a moment, and it was better than anything she could have imagined.

Leo wasn't at the campfire that night. Instead, the Hephaestus kids walked behind their former leader. Nyssa, a girl that Leo had once introduced to them as a friend, saw Jason's and Piper's worried expressions and walked up to them.

"Leo says he isn't feeling good. Umm… I told him to go to the infirmary and get some ambrosia and he just said he wanted to stay home and sleep it off. It sounded a little suspicious to me, but I let it go. You might want to check it out," Nyssa explained, and then ran over to her brothers and sisters.

"I can't leave; Chiron is announcing my quest tonight officially. If I'm not here, he'll wonder what's up. You should go find him," Piper told Jason. He just nodded and left. Piper and Annabeth sat together, discussing what to take along when they departed on the quest tomorrow.

"There's still something I don't quite understand. I know that we _should_ run from camp, because the prophecy says so, but why would the prophecy tell us to run unless we had a good reason for it?" Annabeth asked. Piper had already let the matter go, but of course Annabeth the Brain would not be able to forget about something confusing until she had figured it out.

"I don't think we're supposed to understand yet. If there really is some sort of danger that we're running from, we'll probably find out what soon enough," Piper said, feeling a little fear. Perhaps she shouldn't have let the idea of running from a safe haven go so easily. What if three of the most powerful demigods were leaving on a mission to save someone from peril when the real peril was at home?

Chiron interrupted her thoughts. "Campers, I must make an announcement," he addressed the sea demigod faces that surrounded him, looking at no one in particular. "Though our previous attempts to find Percy Jackson have been futile, now that we now the location of the Roman camp – San Francisco – I have decided that it is time to send a small group of demigods with experience in quests. Though usually we choose who quests should go to as a camp, this quest has already been given to Piper McLean, daughter of Aphrodite," the Aphrodite cabin cheered. "And as her companions, she has chosen Annabeth Chase," the Athena cabin applauded, "and Jason Grace." Jason's name had a mix of approval from random people that Jason had made friends with, since he was leader of a cabin of one.

"They leave tomorrow morning. Piper, if it's okay, I think it would be best if you shared your prophecy with them. Maybe they could shed some light on the things you don't understand," Chiron suggested.

Piper felt insecure about telling everyone. This was _her_, quest. Why did she need to share it with everyone else? Though she didn't like it, every eye in the camp was now on her, so she stood and revealed what felt like her deepest secret.

"My prophecy… umm," Piper began awkwardly.

"_Umm_," mocked her annoying half-sister Drew. Piper glared at her.

"From the half-blood haven three demigods run," Piper began. As she told the camp her prophecy, her friends showed concern, and people like Drew laughed.

"So, Little Miss Actor's Daughter is leading her first quest. Big deal, anybody could do it, we already know where to find Percy. San Francisco."

"That's enough, Drew," Annabeth told her, and Piper felt a surge of gratitude. "First, the prophecy says we're going to the land of the _midnight sun_. That's Alaska, not California. I have a feeling that if we went straight to San Francisco we'd never find him. There are over eight-hundred thousand people there, and you think you could just go to California and find Percy? Good luck, but I think I'll take my chances with Piper."

Drew shrunk back. She could have used her charmspeak; Drew did have the ability. But she knew that anything she tried, Piper could reverse tenfold.

"Does anyone else have anything to say to me before the Aphrodite cabin turns in for the night?" Drew scoffed but said nothing. "Okay, then. C'mon guys."

Other cabin leaders began rounding up their brothers and sisters as well. Piper was taking a head count when a shimmer above the dimming fire caught her eye.

"An Iris message," Piper heard Annabeth mumble. Since Olympus had closed over the winter, Piper had never actually seen an Iris message before. A face that looked vaguely familiar appeared in the flickering light. The campers gasped and Piper realized where she had seen this boy's face before. There was a picture of him and Annabeth hanging in Chiron's office.

"Chiron!" the boy yelled, scanning the crowd for the centaur.

"I'm here," Chiron said.

"The Roman camp is in trouble. I don't have time to explain, and it took quite a few _aurii_ just to get this message through Iris. I… I don't remember what was happening at camp when I left, but I do know that the Roman's lost a boy named Jason at the same time I left. If everything is the same where you are as it is here, then keep a lookout. Our people are disappearing everywhere. We don't know what's going on."

"_Your_ campers are here!" Annabeth shouted at the boy. She seemed… angry. For the first time he noticed her and his faced seemed a little confused.

"Annabeth!" he smiled, like seeing her was a pleasant surprise. Then his lips pursed, as if being happy wasn't necessarily a good thing.

"Where are you? We're coming to get you," Annabeth asked, but too late. He was already beginning to fade.

"Just go to Alaska. You'll know what to do from there," he said, and then he was gone.

The camp was silent for a moment, then everywhere, a cacophony of arguments broke out.

"It couldn't have been him-" one girl said.

"Oh, sure, it was just someone _pretending_ to be-"

"This isn't possible!"

"He's in the ROMAN camp!"

"Quiet!" Chiron yelled. It was the first time Piper had ever heard him raise his voice. "Sending a message from the Roman camp to the Greek camp is highly illegal, and the goddess Iris must have done it at great risk. However, now that this message has been sent, we know that Iris is aware of the location of both camps, and can be bribed."

Annabeth gasped. "Iris isn't at Olympus is she?"

"No," Chiron answered. "When Zeus closed Olympus, he took away Iris' only purpose. Communication was lost. So she left Olympus as a form of rebellion."

"Where did she go?" Piper asked, already sensing the answer.

"Alaska," Chiron said.

Piper laughed. "Well that answers one question. And the other question about the prophecy: why run? That was answered by that boy, wasn't it? Demigods are disappearing. What was his name?" Piper asked. Again, she knew the answer, but felt the need to ask.

Drew cracked up. "You wouldn't know, would you? _That_, oh, fearless leader, was Percy Jackson."


	5. Chapter 5

"We're leaving tomorrow, Leo," Jason said after explaining the nature of Piper's upcoming quest while the rest of the camp was at the fire. "I wish you could come too. It won't be the same without you."

Empty words, Leo thought, callously thrown in Jason's half-hearted attempt at comfort.

"No, I get it," Leo had told Jason. "Chiron needs me here and he needs you to go track down his golden boy." What Leo hadn't said was that the minute Percy Jackson returned, Jason would be reduced to second rate, just like him.

"I'll try to call you and try to update you on the quest," said Jason.

"Hey, you know how dangerous using phones are," Leo told him, "If you did that and got caught I'd have your death on my conscience."

Jason smiled. "Okay, no calls. But I'll figure something out. I want to know what's going on here, too, like the ship's progress."

The ship: it was the one thing that could distract Leo.

"Actually, before you came and interrupted my moping the plan was going to the forges and check out the Argo II. Wanna see it?"

Jason's face lit up. He had seen the ship many times, but his enthusiasm never seemed to fade and Leo thought he understood. Seeing the Argo II was like seeing a bit of your own destiny: it was dangerous and thrilling and beautiful.

"Lets go," said Leo, and the feeling of comradery between the two reignited, if only for a while.

When they reached the forges they were greeted by a flurry of blueprints and more greasy gears than Leo care to count. It was the sort of place that would make most people claustrophobic, but to Leo, it was home.

Jason picked up a flyaway paper and studied it for a moment.

"What's this," he asked as he held it to Leo so he could see it clearly. On the paper was a failed design of a ship with wings.

"Well, I don't know if you noticed, but boats usually don't fly. We've been trying to find a way to get this thing to fly," he said, patting the front end of a partially built ship, which protruded from a huge doorway. "The thing we keep coming back to is magic, but Sue-Ellen, the head of the Hecate cabin, says it would take a lot more power than her cabin could produce."

This brought a pensive look to Jason's face which made Leo chuckle.

"Don't strain yourself too hard, man. We wouldn't want your brain to overheat," he said.

"I'm not a machine, Leo. But what if Hecate has kids in the Roman camp? Would the combined force of the two groups be enough power to make the Argo II fly?"

The question sobered Leo up and the smile melted off his face.

"I… I've never thought about that. I'll ask Sue-Ellen. Meanwhile, you should probably go back to camp before anyone misses you. Big day tomorrow," said Leo.

Jason sighed, "Yeah, I guess so."

"Well, in case you're gone before my cabin mates drag themselves out of bed for breakfast tomorrow, good luck." Leo didn't know whether to shake his hand or give him a hug, so they just awkwardly clasped hands and patted each other's backs.

"Thanks, man. And Leo -"

Jason had been cut off by the unmistakably excited voice of Annabeth Chase.

"Jason!" she yelled from the forge's entrance. "We just got an Iris message from Percy! Get your bags; we're going to Alaska! Hurry!"

With one fleeting glance, Jason turned and left Leo alone again.

"Whew." Leo wiped a mock bead of sweat from his brow. "For a second there I thought my best friend might actually care about me," he mumbled to himself.

Just as Leo turned to the Argo II, thinking about magic, he caught a glimpse of something black. Then a boy close to his age appeared from behind the ship.

"Holy Hades!" Leo jumped, reaching to his tool belt for a weapon.

"Trust me, there's nothing holy about him," the boy said. He had black eyes, black hair, and a menacing face. Something about him gave Leo chills, like the boy was freezing the forges over.

"What do you want?" Leo asked.

The boy laughed. "Just the audience of a fellow outcast," he answered. "My name is Nico Di Angelo." He held out his hand for Leo to shake, but Leo didn't take it.

"What are you doing here?"

"I just told you," Nico said, rolling his eyes. "Look, I'm a friend of Percy's but kids of the Big Three are really only important in our world if they're kids of the 'Even Bigger Two.' I've always lived in the shadows, and I prefer it. But I've been watching this camp for days, and for a fire boy, I'd say you've seen your share of shadows, too."

Leo finally made the connection he should have seen from the moment he heard Nico speak.

"I know who you are. You're Jason's cousin. Son of Hades," he said.

Nico took a bow. "At your service. Look, kids like us… we're just as important as kids like Jason and Percy. We just work from behind the scenes. So I've decided to stay at this pitiful camp for a while. I'll help you build your ship."

"And in return?" Leo asked, sensing a bargain.

"Hey, I'm not exactly my father's son. Sometimes I do things out of the kindness of my heart," Nico told Leo.

He came off as a slimy character; the sort of shady person you would go to for an underhanded arrangement. A few months ago, Leo wouldn't have cast a second glance at a kid like Nico, but now this boy's edge was exactly what he wanted – no, needed – in a friendship.

"Okay," said Leo. "I think this will work out."

Nico Di Angelo's face split into a wide grin. "It better; haven't had a close friend since my sister. So how about you give me a tour of this ship. I'm not really the boat type, that's Percy's thing, but I'm pretty smart. Honestly, the whole flying deal doesn't sit well with me. Chalk it up to genes, but I prefer the underground."

This made Leo laugh. "I guess Hephaestus and Hades are more similar than I thought. Do you think you'll be one of the seven of the Great Prophecy?"

"No. My family has a bit of a history with the spirit of the oracle. I don't get prophecies. Like I said, I work behind the scenes."

"Oh," Leo said, a little disappointed, knowing that he had a guaranteed spot on the Argo II this summer. "That's too bad."

Nico scoffed. "You know that the last oracle was a rotting corpse, right?"

Leo had heard that before, but it wasn't something he liked to think about.

"That was my dad's doing. He put a curse on her while she was still alive after my mom died. My dad blamed her for not warning us. Honestly, I'm not so sure I want to know my future. A life like mine is bound to end badly. Just like my mom and my sister. It always ends badly."

Leo could hear the veiled pain in Nico's voice and he felt yet another connection to him.

"My mom died when I was just a little kid. I thought tried to protect her with my fire, but instead I just burned down the entire building," Leo said. He regretted saying this, it sounded like he was asking for pity, but he had felt the need to relate.

"I know. I've met her. She's lovely."

This brought tears to Leo's eyes. The fact that Nico had spoken to his mother made him a little angry, a little sad, a little pleased, but mostly jealous.

"If… if you see her again tell her I love her," Leo said, feeling silly.

Nico pursed his lips. "I don't generally pass messages beyond the grave, but I'll see what I can do."

It was as if Nico had opened Leo's eyes to a whole know world by talking about his mother and he craved more. It seemed that Nico had noticed the hunger in Leo's eyes, too.

"Ship. Show it to me," he said, changing the subject.

Leo felt disappointment, but he was friends with a boy who visited the underworld regularly now. There would be plenty of time for more information later.

"Okay. C'mon." Leo waved him toward the ship. They boarded the ship, talking about everything the Hephaestus cabin had designed. It turned out that Nico actually was quite handy with tools. They worked until Nyssa came in, shocked to find another kid in the forges.

"Leo, our cabin is turning in for the night," she said. "You can hang out here but you know the harpies will be here soon to clean up."

"Ah, the harpies," Nico said. "Let's go. I have an honorary cabin now. See you later, Leo."

That night, Leo felt at peace. Until he woke up at three in the morning to the sound of his little brother screaming. It took a moment for his bunk to reach the ground floor, since everyone had separate underground sleeping quarters, but when he did he was greeted by chaos.

"What happened," he yelled at no one in particular.

"It's Harley," Michael answered. Leo caught a glimpse of the young boy huddled on the floor surrounded by his brothers and sisters. His shoulder was bleeding profusely.

"Somebody give him some ambrosia and take him to the infirmary!"

Under Leo's instruction, the scene became more organized and by the time everyone except for Harley and a few others were sitting calmly in the cabin, it was nearly five thirty in the morning.

"Someone please tell me what happened," Leo demanded of the cabin. Again Michael was the one to answer.

"Nyssa is gone. From what Harley could explain, he saw Nyssa walking out of the cabin. He tried to stop her and she stabbed him in the shoulder."

Shock hit Leo like a punch in the gut.

"Nyssa?" he asked, confused.

Michael nodded. "Leo… she was sleepwalking."


	6. Chapter 6

Leo excelled in two things. The first was his understanding of machines, and the second was his mediocrity in everything else. Both of which, he took pride in. The ability to solve crimes, however, was not a part of his skill set. Regardless of this fact, Leo felt compelled to look into the events of the previous night.

Leo had already visited Harley, who was nearly healed thanks to nectar and ambrosia, but he had discerned nothing from the young boy's sleepy mumbling. Athena's children had been given the job of finding out what had happened, but it wasn't enough for Leo. There was something about a sleep-induced attempted murder that scared Leo more than anything. It was as if his own mother's death was coming back to haunt him. A sleeping woman… an innocent victim… and Leo…

Nico had crossed Leo's mind. If something had happened to Nyssa, Nico would know. She couldn't be dead, at least. Even as he thought this, Nico realized that in the world of demigods, there were things far worse than death.

In the end, it wasn't companionship that he wanted. He wanted to go to the Hephaestus bunker. He wanted his dragon back.

Of course, the dragon would never come back. Just like his mother. Just like, he feared, Nyssa.

Without feeling his feet move, Leo walked slowly through the woods to the bunker and stepped inside. He saw the blueprint for the ship—which was far too brittle to move to the forges, so they just studied it from the bunker. There, on the bow of the Argo II, was the image of Festus' head, proudly looking out into the distance.

In the corner of the bunker sat a pile of scrap metal. It was the rubble that his mighty dragon had been reduced to. Leo shifted around the golden chunks, looking for anything that could help him remember his favorite pet. There, beneath a shoulder blade, was a burned and scraped disc.

He lifted it and studied the barely visible engravings carved into its sides. There were dirty gems inlaid in its edges, which appeared to be in good condition. Leo wondered if Sue-Ellen would be able to find any use in them. Perhaps it wasn't a good idea to ignore the other demigods. It would be smart to talk to the Hecate cabin, and he wouldn't be a very good friend if he kept avoiding Nico.

Leo wrapped the disc in a greasy cloth that he pulled from his tool belt and departed from the bunker.

The overgrown path back to the camp would have been impossible to discern from the brush, had Leo not made this commute as many times as he had over the past months. It seemed unlikely that he would run into anyone so deep in the woods, but there before him was a girl—no she wasn't a girl. She was a wood nymph.

Leo moved in to look at her more closely. She had green eyes, which were hardly visible past the alligator tears that were gushing from her eyes. _Antisocial_ wasn't exactly the best word to describe Leo, but he most certainly wasn't the best comforter in the world. Leo considered walking around her, but she was in the only clearing, and everything surrounding was thick with thorns and branches.

Leo shifted his weight and a stick cracked. The nymph's head shot up.

"Who's there?" she called out. "Come out, now."

Leo had heard somewhere that her kind was gentle, so the demand took him by surprise and he felt his feet moving forward without realizing what was going on.

"What are you doing here? Demigods don't come out here anymore."

Leo was confused. "I heard demigods came around here a lot just last year," he told her.

She pursed her lips. "Trees have a much different sense of time. They used to play games. They used to talk to us. Nobody has any time for the forest anymore." Her bottom lip trembled and Leo feared she would begin to cry again. Surely, if he just said a couple of kind words he would spend less time comforting her than if he gave some shallow sentiments and caused a tantrum.

Leo opened his mouth to say something nice, but he could think of nothing to say to a tree.

"What can I do to help?" he finally asked, feeling rather disappointed with his own lot.

It seemed he had said the wrong thing, because the green-tinted girl burst into more tears. "Oh! I- I don't know! It's j-just so _lifeless_ out here when the demigods and the satyrs don't visit! C-c-can you believe it? A f-forest! _Lifeless!_"

This confused Leo. Why weren't the satyrs visiting the forest?

"What's your name?" Leo asked.

She peered through her fingers, which had been hiding her face. "J-Juniper. I used to be well known among the demigods. I w-w-wonder if they even remember me!" she cried.

"Juniper, can you tell me why the satyrs aren't visiting?" he inquired in the most pleading voice he could manage without sounding like he was talking down to her.

"H-how should _I _know? I haven't been told anything. My boyfriend hasn't visited in months. The last time that happened, he had been put to sleep. The world's longest nap."

"Put to sleep? Like… like a dog?" Leo asked, wondering if the gods would actually have things put down.

"No!" she gasped. "A god actually made him sleep!"

This gave Leo chills. What was it with sleep lately? Was there no such thing as an innocent doze anymore? Leo knew one thing for sure: he was likely not going to be able to sleep tonight.

"I'll speak to Chiron. Maybe we can arrange something. It's time the campers got to play a game anyway." Leo also made a mental note to talk to Coach Hedge, a "friend" and satyr. Coach Hedge had gone away for a while to assist Piper's father in rearranging his priorities, but had returned for the spring to help Leo and the others in building the ship, not that he'd been any help.

Now that he thought of it, Leo hadn't really seen the coach around much. Perhaps once or twice, but Leo had never been fond enough of Hedge to find his absence odd.

The sound of Juniper's sniffles brought Leo out of his reverie and back to the present. "Thank y-you. It was nice to talk to someone that wasn't a tree," she said. "Will you come back and visit me sometimes? And maybe tell the other campers about how lonely it is out here," she suggested. Leo would, of course, have to walk straight through Juniper's path to get to the bunker. There was no way to avoid her.

"Yeah, Juniper. I'm Leo, by the way."

Juniper smiled, though her face still had greenish blotches from crying.

"Easy, Leo. I _am_ dating someone," she said, as if Leo introducing himself was a form of hitting on her.

Leo was tempted to say something like, "Umm, no thanks. I'm not in to trees," but he decided to take the kinder approach.

"Too bad. I have to get back to camp. I'll see you later, Juniper. And I'll make sure we get a game of capture the flag started, like they used to do." Leo smiled at her and walked through her path, leaving her sitting on the same stone she had been seated on when he found her.

It would be good to play a game, but that wasn't the reason Leo had left in such a hurry. Leo ran through the trees and to the small hut on the edge of the forest, which he knew Hedge should have been staying in. Just as he had suspected, the hut was completely empty.

Coach Hedge was gone, and wherever he had been taken to, Leo thought, Nyssa was probably there, too.


	7. Chapter 7

Jason hadn't been sure what to pack in the small duffle bag. He had thought it would be difficult to choose between what he needed and what he wanted, but it turned out that Jason had few possessions that weren't necessities. The only luxury he allowed himself was a small picture, which he kept in his pocket.

The black haired girl smiled up at him from the photograph. She was the one thing Jason knew belonged in both his past and his future. Thalia was his sister, and even though he hadn't known it, that fact had never changed through his memory shift. Jason knew that if he found Percy Jackson, he would finally remember everything. He would have his entire sister back. There were many reasons that Jason would help Piper on her quest, but Thalia was the biggest one.

Chiron had given them each a bag of money—both green and gold varieties—as well as a bag of ambrosia and canteens of nectar. The three demigods faced him in front of a bus stop. Chiron sat in a wheel chair while Argus sat in the car a few paces away, warily glancing at his surroundings with his many eyes through the gaps between his trench coat collar and hat.

"I've seen these things too often," Annabeth sighed at the sight of Chiron's offerings.

"You don't have to do this, Annabeth," Chiron told her. "You're just as good a builder as any child of Hephaestus. I'd understand if you wanted to stay behind and let Leo go."

Annabeth glared at him, which looked strange on her usually kind, if not overwhelmed face. "You know just as well as I do that I have to go. You think I'm letting this chump rescue my boyfriend?" Annabeth nudged Jason. "Uh-uh. I'm going."

"Hey," Jason said, trying to defend himself. "I've probably rescued a lot of people. I just can't remember who."

Piper laughed. "Don't worry, you'll get it someday," she said, with mock enthusiasm. "Don't lose hope!"

Chiron smiled at her. "You may be joking, but I believe it's the truth. If you remember anything, we know Iris messages are working. Just try not to do it too often; it sounded as if Percy paid a hefty price to send even that short message. Now leave," Chiron said, as Jason turned in time to see the bus.

Annabeth appeared to be contemplating hugging Chiron, but instead just said, "I'm so sick of this. See you later, I guess, Chiron," then followed Piper and Jason to the bus.

"Jason," Chiron called to him, and Jason looked back to see his concerned face. "Annabeth has grown hopeless. No matter what happens, no matter what you see… promise that you won't let her get hurt."

Jason had heard that Annabeth had been at the camp since she was just a little girl. He had been told that the relationship between the two was like that of a father and a daughter.

"I won't," Jason vowed, wondering what Chiron feared could harm Annabeth after all that she had been through.

Once Jason had climbed the stairs and entered the seating area, he found that the vehicle was already quite crowded, but Piper and Annabeth had saved a seat for him.

"Okay, we take the bus to the airport; get tickets to Juneau, and from there… I'm not sure," Piper was saying.

"We'll figure it out when we get there. We don't really need a plan. Demigods are drawn to the places where the gods dwell. Once we're there, it should be easy to find Iris," Annabeth told her.

"We're just winging it? I like it," Jason said, trying to sound like he wasn't worried. In truth, the idea of walking blind sounded stupid, but perhaps that was his strict Roman training talking—which Jason was remembering pieces of.

The bus ride wasn't long, but it seemed like forever. Jason was beginning to wonder how they were supposed to get through security with all of the weapons when Annabeth seemed to sense his train of thought.

"Machines like metal detectors and scanners are all influenced by Hephaestus. No technology would exist without him. And because of him, they don't see ancient weapons or anything made of celestial bronze. We'll be fine."

"That's convenient," said Piper. She seemed distracted, as she looked at the huge airport.

"What's wrong?" Jason asked.

"What?" she looked at him, as if she had only realized he was there. "Oh, nothing. I was just thinking about the last time I was on a plane. My dad took me to Disney World. I just remembered I didn't get to tell him that I'll be gone for a while. He doesn't know about any of this, and I call him once a week. If I don't talk to him tonight he'll be worried."

The bus stopped and a ton of people piled off of it. Jason breathed a sigh of relief when he stepped into the open air. He hadn't noticed how confined he had felt until the ride was over.

"Piper, your dad will be fine. Coach Hedge's girlfriend, your dad's secretary, will just make something up he won't worry at all. Besides, we really can't risk a phone call at an airport. Too many things could go wrong," Annabeth reassured her.

Jason imagined the panic that a monster would ensue at a place as huge as this. Even if the mortals didn't know what the beasts were, they would surely see something. And whatever they saw, it wouldn't be pretty.

"Everybody brought their passports, right?" Jason asked. All demigods at Camp Half-Blood had passports, many of them fake, given the criminal records of some. Piper's name had been changed to Piper Smith, because, as the daughter of a celebrity, she could be recognized.

The three of them bought tickets, waited, passed through security, and finally boarded the plane without saying more than a few words. There really wasn't much they could say that wasn't suspicious. At one point, Annabeth mumbled, "Percy can't fly. I wonder how we'll get home."

When Jason asked if he was afraid of flying, Annabeth laughed a single exasperated huff.

"I wish," she replied. "The air is Zeus' domain. He and Percy have never really been on good terms."

A man in a black suit and tie overheard their conversation and stared at them, so they grew quiet again, but he didn't stop watching them for a while.

They found their seats in the center isle of the coach section. At least they were together, but the plane seemed so crowded it would be impossible to discuss anything at all. Then, to make matters worse, the man who had heard their conversation before sat right in front of Jason.

As the plane took off, Jason began to feel uneasy, though it seemed that everyone else on _Flight 822_ seemed to relax. In fact, nearly everyone was falling asleep.

"Piper," Jason said, shaking her shoulder as her head flopped back onto her seat. "Piper," he said again, with more intensity, but she would not wake, so he tried the same thing on Annabeth with the same results.

The man in the black suit stood from his seat and faced Jason. "They will awaken only if I tell them to," he said.

Jason gave himself a mental punch in the gut. After all this time, he still couldn't recognize an immortal when he saw one.

"Then tell them to!" Jason shouted, not caring who heard, but a quick glance around told him that no one would hear. No one was conscious. Then a new problem presented itself: the plane was drifting. Were the captains asleep as well?

"Don't worry; I want them to be awake for the plane crash. I would like for you to say goodbye to your friends. I am not cruel." The most twisted part of the entire statement was the sincerity with which it was spoken. The man truly seemed to think he was doing Jason a kindness.

"You'll let us all die? Why are you doing this?" he asked, feeling utter defiance rise in his chest. He would not let his friends be killed by whoever or whatever this man was.

"I am doing it because it's right. A few lives are a small price to pay to take Zeus out of power. Your father has ruled for far too long. I'm not some angry minor god from the Titan War. No, I know the danger the Titans would have brought. I have found a far older, far greater power than Zeus and Chronos combined. You pesky demigods always seem to get in the way of great powers, though, so I've been given the duty of eradicating the world of you. I figure the best place to start would be with you and Mr. Jackson, of course. My reward will be the safety of my own children. They will be the last of your kind," the god revealed a taste of bitterness with that final statement, but it was overshadowed by his evil words, and Jason hated him for it.

"You've done what you came for then. Wake them up," Jason said. He knew that if he could get the god to leave, there was a small chance that the pilots would wake up before they had lost too must altitude. It wasn't likely, though, because they had already begun their descent, and it wouldn't be long before they hit the ground and Jason was flattened into a demigod pancake.

"No, I don't think so, boy. We will wait a moment," he said, obviously sensing his plan.

"They'll be unconscious either way! Once you leave we'll be dropping too quickly," he said, scrambling for a convincing reason for the god to go.

"Ah, I thought you might say that. But there are some advantages to riding in a plane with a son of Zeus. The air around us loves you. It manipulates itself to better serve you. No one in close proximity to you will feel the drop. They probably won't even feel the ground."

This fact would have been awesome to hear in other circumstances. They were falling in earnest now, and masks were coming from the ceiling, but Jason couldn't feel the effects of gravity. Was that the air, serving him?

"I'd say now would be a good time to leave," the god said.

"_Tuae sororis caput parvum est_!" Jason shouted at the man. The insult flew from his lips without his control, but as the god laughed Jason realized that all he had said was that the god's sister's head was small. Some Roman he was.

"I wish you a happy afterlife, boy!" His chuckle rang in the air even after he disappeared.

Everyone around woke up making noises of confusion. The masks were down and the people next to windows could see their steep descent, but no one could feel the fall. A woman at a window seat screamed.

_Please put your seatbelts on and prepare for a crash landing_, the captain's voice addressed the plane from an intercom.

Annabeth's and Piper's faces appeared slightly afraid, but resigned. They must have had an idea of the cause of the fall. Jason's gut twisted when he looked at them. He would not let them die.

The plane jerked, but the passengers barely felt it. Then it jerked again.

"Jason, are you slowing us down?" Piper asked, appearing shocked but triumphant.

The effort was exhausting, but Jason didn't give in. He had only flown a few times, but never had he held anything as heavy as an airplane. He cried out, and his face broke into a sweat. Again the plane jerked. He could only imagine what the captains were going through in the cockpit.

"Come on, Jason, you can do this!" Annabeth encouraged. It felt like he was physically trying to hold a plane up. It was impossible, yet the drop continued to slow.

Some of the other passengers saw Jason, kneeling on the floor, but they, of course, didn't know that he was helping them. Many of them, in fact, seemed to think he was causing the fall. The mist must have been changing their sight.

"It's him! I saw him running from the cockpit," a blonde woman shouted from a few seats away.

"Yeah, I saw it, too!" said a gray haired man in suspenders.

Others shouted in agreement.

_Bump! Bump! BUMP!_ The plane continued to slow. Then, with one final grind, all of the passengers jumped. It seemed the plane had landed in a cornfield.

"Get him!" A thick necked man shouted. It was all Jason could discern before he fainted.


	8. Chapter 8

When Jason awoke, it was to quite a predicament—he seemed to be waking to those quite a bit lately. He was being pulled, his legs dragging across the ground. On either side of him there was a passenger from the plane. Each had an arm under one of Jason's shoulders as they carried him from their landing spot. Amazingly, no one that Jason could see even had a scratch, though a quick assessment of the plane revealed a broken wing and several other damaged areas.

"Ah, the hijacker lives!" said the man at his left shoulder.

"You must be so disappointed to see us all okay," said the man at his right.

"What?" Jason asked. "I didn't do anything, let me go," he said. Jason had a massive headache, and he had a painful feeling in his gut, as if he had just completed a thousand sit-ups.

"That's what you would say, isn't it?" the man at the left said.

"Of course, it is. But we've got witnesses. Everybody saw you running from the cockpit," said the man at the right.

Who was Jason working with, here, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum? "Guys, use your heads. I was in coach the whole time. I would have to pass through first class to get to the cockpit. Ask anyone who was sitting in first class, I never went through there," he explained, feeling as if he had given a valid argument.

"We did that already," said Tweedle Dee.

"We aren't idiots," finished Tweedle Dum. These two were beginning to really get on Jason's nerves. He had just saved their lives!

"Oh, yeah? And did they say that I'm innocent?" Jason asked.

"_Nope_," Tweedle Dum said, allowing the word to make a _popping_ sound as it passed his lips. "He says he saw you run from the cockpit just as the plane began to plummet. And the pilots confirm that you attacked them and knocked them out. They awoke just in time to keep the plane from crashing."

"Me? I'm just a teenage boy! Against two pilots? Impossible," Jason said, thinking that he could easily have been able to knock out two untrained men. These guys didn't have to know that, though. For a moment, he considered taking on these two dummies, but the thought of Annabeth and Piper stopped him. If the passengers didn't know the three of them were together and Jason started a fight, Annabeth and Piper would try to help him. He wasn't willing to risk their safety, especially after his promise to Chiron to keep Annabeth from harm.

"Looks can be deceiving. At first glance, I'd say a scrawny kid like you wouldn't last two seconds against a couple of full grown men. But you could be trained," Tweedle Dee said.

"I want to talk to this first class witness," Jason said. He indulged himself with the thought of at least knocking the illusion of his guiltiness from this guy's head. Jason knew he would never harm a mortal whose mind had been affected by the mist, though. He refused.

"Where do you think we're taking you, pal?" Tweedle Dum asked. "Gotta make sure your face is really the one he saw."

Jason had nearly forgotten that his feet were being dragged along behind him. He pulled his feet up and began walking with the men instead of letting them carry him. Wherever Piper was, Jason knew that she would soon be able to sort this mess out. She would charmspeak the passengers into silent submission if she had to.

The two men abruptly stopped as Jason attempted to keep walking. Since they still had a hold on Jason's shoulders, he felt like his arms had been ripped from their sockets. He grunted, but stopped moving. Instead, Jason cast his eyes on the familiar figures that stood before him. One was Annabeth, one was Piper, and the third, Jason could not name, but recognized.

"Who is this?" asked the third person: a sharply dressed, dark haired man. His arm was wrapped around Piper's shoulder, and suddenly Jason realized who he was. Though the last time Jason had seen him, his face appeared sickly and his body was broken, but this man was unmistakably Tristan McClean. "This is not the boy I saw."

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum simultaneously slumped, clearly disappointed. Their grips loosened and suddenly Jason was free again.

"He was blonde and was wearing an orange shirt, but it was not him. Keep looking, I'm sure you'll find him," said Piper's father. The two men turned and left, leaving the four of them together. Other passengers were too busy calling the police or finding their possessions among the wreckage to notice them.

"Alright, Pipes, it's time to explain what's going on. I know this is the kid that ran from the cockpit. And you're a long way from your home right now. What were you and these two doing on a flight to Alaska?" Tristan McClean asked.

"Umm, it's sort of a long story. We…" Piper began. Jason could almost see the gears spinning in her brain. She didn't want to charmspeak her own father, but nor would she tell him about the life she was living. "Don't worry about it, Dad. You didn't see Jason coming from the cockpit at all. You saw another boy. And you knew we were going on a trip to Alaska. You told me I could go on a vacation with my friends," Piper said. Her voice rang through Jason's ears and he almost believed what she said. But Jason knew the truth, and he refused to allow Piper's cool tongue do its trick on him. Her father, however, seemed to hang on every word she said like scripture.

"Right, Pipes. I remember now. Vacation," he said. He didn't seem to notice the tears in Piper's eyes, but Jason did. He walked over to her and put his arm around her shoulder, but she shrugged it off. Piper saw her gift as a curse, and using it on her own father was pure torture for her.

"Let's go," Annabeth whispered to the two of them. Piper nodded.

"Leaving so soon?" asked Tristan McClean. "You must be excited to get to your vacation!" This time all three nodded.

The edge of the cornfield was very near, and since corn was out of season, there was nothing to restrict their paths to the fence and right to the road. The three of them walked in silence to the fence. In silence they climbed over it. In silence they stood by the road. In silence Annabeth pulled out a golden drachma. And together, they piled into the loudest, most uncomfortable car ride that Jason had ever experienced.


	9. Chapter 9

Annabeth explained to Piper and Jason over the hysteria that these three women were known as the Gray Sisters. She, Percy, and Percy's half-brother had taken a ride once in their cab. Piper didn't understand why Annabeth would ever want to ride with them twice, but on the brighter side, they did seem to be making good time. They had already made it over half way, and Piper found herself sitting between Annabeth and Jason somewhere in Canada.

"Look out!" Jason shouted at the sister on the steering wheel after nearly jumping the curb and hitting a family of pedestrian mortals. Piper would have found this statement funny, since the woman had no eyes, but things are rarely funny to a girl who feels that her life is at risk. Besides, Piper mostly felt angry, since she had been thrust into a frightening situation without being given time to properly grieve about yet again brainwashing her father.

The sisters snickered. "Relax, boy, we've been doing this for years," said the one with the mossy tooth.

"How much longer to the train station?" Jason asked Annabeth, who glanced at her watch. Piper noticed that her fists were clenched and her hands were shaking. The car swerved to narrowly miss an old man crossing the street. He made a rude gesture, which only the sister with the eye noticed.

"Crazy old man," she grumbled, through a mouth void of teeth.

Suddenly, Annabeth did something that Piper would never have expected: she reached forward and snatched the eye right from the sister's face.

"Familiar with this situation?" Annabeth asked.

"Annabeth, what are you doing?" Piper said, shocked.

"Give it back, idiot girl!" said the newly eyeless woman.

"What's going on?" demanded the one with the tooth.

"She stole our eye!" answered the one driving.

"I would have expected this from Poseidon's stupid kid, but never from a daughter of Athena!" the first one said.

"I'm usually the same way," Annabeth said, "but I'm desperate. Last time, you gave Percy coordinates."

"Annabeth, we're going to Alaska. We don't need coordinates, and honestly, I'd rather live. Just give back the eye," pleaded Jason. The car began to swerve violently.

"He's in San Francisco! Give it to me," said the sister sitting in the middle, groping blindly for the eye, but her hands coming up empty.

"You don't think I already know that? We're running out of time, and I'm _not_ wasting what precious little we have trying to find Iris when I could just get the location from you. Tell me exactly how to find my boyfriend, and you'll get your eye back."

The sisters sighed in unison. "We tried to stop you, but you couldn't be stopped," said the one at the steering wheel.

"When your boyfriend stole our eye for information last time, we prepared ourselves for this sort of thing," said the one in the middle.

The third sister, the one with the teeth, reached into her jacket. Annabeth clenched more tightly to the slimy eyeball.

"We aren't terribly used to these new contraptions. We prefer old weapons. But times change."

Piper looked at the woman's hand and was surprised to see a celestial bronze gun, pointed straight at Jason.

The sister in the middle grabbed the gun and pointed it toward Annabeth. "She was sitting here, stupid."

"I distinctly heard her voice from this direction," said the sister with the teeth. She snatched the gun and pointed it at Piper.

"You're both wrong," said the sister driving. She took both of her hands off the wheel and lunged toward the gun. All three demigods shrieked as they drifted into oncoming traffic.

"Just give them the eye, Annabeth!" Jason shouted, panicked.

"Ah, did you hear that? She's not sitting there," said the sister who ought to have been driving. She was pointing at the place where Jason had been sitting before he had completely jumped from his spot and into the driver's seat. It was too late though. The cab swiped another car and turned on its side.

_BAM! _The gun fired and Annabeth screamed.

"Ha! I have it!" said one of the sisters. Piper couldn't tell which, because her vision had gone blurry.

Focus, Piper told herself. Her sight cleared for a moment, then slid from focus again. Was she sideways? Someone was messing with her seatbelt.

"Piper!" Jason called to her. "Get up. Help me get Annabeth out of here."

Annabeth was hurt. Of course Piper would get up and help. All she needed to do was move her legs. But they weren't working right. Piper shifted for a moment and found what she was looking for: a bag with small pastries.

Piper shoved a square of ambrosia into her mouth and felt her energy return. Annabeth's door was right above them and Annabeth seemed to be losing consciousness as she hung from her seatbelt. Piper couldn't reach Annabeth's buckle, so she cut the belt with her dagger and Annabeth fell from her perch, only to be caught by Jason.

Though Piper had been trying to figure out how to reach the door above, Jason seemed to have other ideas. He kicked the back window out with his foot and walked through the makeshift exit. Piper quickly followed, trying to get away from the Gray Sisters before they managed to shoot with eyesight.

Jason was doing all of the work. He had hefted Annabeth onto his shoulders and was supporting Piper's weight as well. He seemed to be walking toward the trees about fifty yards from the roadside and Piper understood. The car they had collided with wasn't horribly damaged and there was no time for the three of them to stay any longer. They had to get away from the sisters, and they had to get out of sight.

Piper risked another bite of ambrosia and she began to walk straighter, without the help of Jason. Annabeth groaned.

"Quickly," Piper said. She could hear sirens and she prayed that an ambulance was only a precaution and not actually necessary for anyone in the other car. If no one had been driving, could it still be considered a hit-and-run?

Piper reached the edge of the woods first, since she wasn't carrying anyone. Jason was, impressively, just a moment behind her. He laid Annabeth on the ground with her head propped against a tree root. She was bleeding from her shoulder and Piper realized that the bullet that the sisters had shot must have grazed Annabeth and caused her to pass out.

"Oh gosh, why couldn't Aphrodite have been interested in medicine?" Piper said.

Jason opened Annabeth's mouth and poured in some nectar. It mostly just dribbled from her mouth, but she swallowed a little. Her eyes fluttered for a moment and then she seemed to realize what was happening.

"Oh no," she said. She grimaced and Piper handed her a square of ambrosia. "How could I have been so stupid?" she mumbled. Just minutes before Piper had been wondering the same thing, but now that she could see Annabeth's anger and disappointment, Piper could feel nothing but shame.

"You did what you thought was right-" Jason began.

"I set us back, don't try to justify this! Now we have no ride and any witnesses will describe us to the police, not to mention the fact that I'm wounded and Piper looks like she has a concussion."

Piper's eyes had been sliding in and out of focus and her head felt like it had been pounded into minced meat. Apparently, it looked like it, too.

"I'm not justifying anything, Annabeth. But what's done is done and now we have to cope." Jason kept his voice level despite Annabeth's shouting.

Annabeth looked away from Jason and put her hands on her head. Piper had never seen her act this way before.

"This is bad, this is bad, this is bad," Annabeth mumbled.

"Tell me about it," Piper said. "The brain in our group is losing her head. We really can't handle that, Annabeth. You made a decision without talking to us and we ended up like this. Last time I checked, this was my quest, so quit with the snap decisions before you get us killed. You're one of my closest friends… please don't become someone you're not just because you're desperate."

Annabeth looked up at Jason and Piper and sighed, "I'm going to find Percy, no matter what it takes from me, but I will never endanger your lives again. I promise."

Jason thanked her, but Piper said nothing. She had barely even heard Annabeth's promise, for it had been something that had escaped Piper's own lips that sent a chill down her spine. She had called Annabeth one of her closest friends:

_By the time you reach the thing you seek_

_A dear friend's heart will have grown too weak._

"We need to get out of here," Annabeth said, interrupting Piper's thoughts. "I hailed that taxi on the off chance that the Gray Sisters were in our area, but I knew it was a long shot. The Gray Sisters work in New York, not Canada. The only reason they would have been where we were—lower South Dakota—is if there have been a lot of New Yorkers traveling in that direction."

"I don't understand," said Jason. "What does that mean?"

"I'm not sure," she replied. "But these New Yorkers were demigods and so-called mythical creatures, since you can't hail that taxi without a drachma. Do you remember Percy's Iris Message?" Piper nodded, but Jason did not, because he had not been present for the message. "He said that people were disappearing from the Roman camp, and I bet the same thing is happening at ours. They're leaving, and they're going this way. This makes it even more imperative that we leave."

Piper felt her eyelids droop. It was only the first day of the quest and they had made a huge dent in the distance they needed to travel. Couldn't they just rest?

"I'm tired, and this place has lots of coverage from the trees. Why don't we just sleep here tonight?" she asked.

"Impossible," said Annabeth. "There are bad monsters in Canada. Cannibals. It isn't safe to stay out in the open. We'll find a barn to sleep in or something, but we can't be outdoors at night."

Piper snuck a peek at Annabeth's watch and saw that it was only nine o'clock at night. If she could be this tired now—even after that nap on the airplane—she really didn't see how they'd survive this quest.

"Okay," Piper said. "But we better find a barn with queen size mattresses and goose feather pillows."

Annabeth and Jason laughed.

"Would you settle for a couple of light blankets from our bags and some really soft hay?" Jason asked.

"Done," Piper told him. To tell the truth, Piper would have been happy to rest her head on anything.

"Let's get going then," Annabeth smiled. Piper and Jason each offered her a hand and hefted her from her spot by the tree. For a moment, she swayed then regained her balance.

She isn't going to die, Piper told herself at the sight of Annabeth's moment of weakness. She's strong.

And Annabeth was strong. She walked for miles with the other two demigods without any help, but no barn was to be found and they could walk no longer. When Annabeth's dragging feet tripped Piper, all the three could do was laugh until they collapsed, and they fell asleep the moment they hit the ground.


	10. Chapter 10

The moment Piper closed her eyes, the nightmare started, and this one was bad.

Most of the dreams that came from Piper's godly side allowed her to look upon something without actually being involved, but this time she saw a boy about her age struggle through the sand as he crawled from a roiling sea. His eyes were as green as the stormy waves themselves, and they were looking directly at her.

The boy reached out his hand and whispered, "H-help…me." His hand fell, as if he could no longer hold it up.

"This is not possible." Piper's lips formed the words, but they were not her own. Piper's legs rushed for the boy, but it had not been her brain that had caused the motion, though she had wanted to do exactly that. "How are you alive?"

The boy just breathed: _inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale…_

Piper stroked his wet hair until his breathing slowed, and as she did, she noticed her hands for the first time. Her fingernails were smooth and perfect unlike the nails Piper usually chewed on when her nerves went crazy. Piper's skin has always been tan, since she has Cherokee, but this skin was pale and it shined even when the sun was hidden behind storm clouds.

"Who…who am I?" the boy asked finally, in a voice that had gone raspy from breathing in saltwater.

Piper was sure of one thing: the body that she inhabited was not her own, but she sensed that whoever this was knew the answer to his question, which was why she didn't understand when she said, "I cannot be sure, but I shall care for you until I find out."

A deep feeling came from somewhere inside of this body. It was pain, far worse than being physically hurt. This was the feeling of an old heartbreak being torn apart again. Piper was sure she wouldn't have been able to recognize the feeling if she hadn't been born of the original heartbreaker.

Tears fell down Piper's cheeks freely, and the feelings became too unbearable. Without realizing how, Piper's consciousness slipped from this scene, and returned to Canada, early in the morning.

"_Di Immortales_, this hurts," Annabeth said, checking the bandage on her wounded shoulder. Though the blood had stopped because of the nectar and ambrosia, Annabeth had obviously not healed completely.

"Tell me about it," Piper mumbled, thinking back to her dream. She looked down at her hands to confirm that she was now herself, but discovered something just as surprising. Sometime that night, Jason's and Piper's hands met. The thought made Piper shiver, which Annabeth mistook for being cold.

"Here," Annabeth said, holding out a blanket that she had extracted from the duffle bag that she had been using as a pillow. Piper took it gratefully, since the brisk morning air really was giving Piper chills.

Jason groaned and joined the living. "Is anyone else hungry?" he asked through a yawn, rolling from the spot where he had been sleeping.

Now that Piper thought about food, she couldn't stop thinking about it. She hadn't eaten since breakfast yesterday, unless you counted the bag of peanuts she had eaten on the airplane.

"Absolutely!" said Annabeth at the same time Piper said, "_So_ hungry!"

Jason smiled, "Okay. Let's go pancake hunting."

Piper laughed. "Oh yeah, oatmeal had better watch out."

"For sure," said Annabeth. "Frosted Flakes are going down. I'm a cereal killer."

Some of the slap-happy attitude returned from last night, but it didn't last long, because they were all so hungry that their stomachs hurt.

Annabeth pulled out three bags of airplane peanuts to hold them off.

"Call me paranoid, but I've been on a few quests, and I didn't want to risk starving," she explained.

"Hey, I'm not complaining," Jason told her while Piper heartily agreed. "It's just too bad these bags have to be so small."

The more they spoke about food, the worse it became. A couple of times, it sounded like their grumbling stomachs where trying to harmonize. As the three of them walked aimlessly, Piper began watching their feet. It had always been a strange tendency of hers to try to align her steps with anyone that walked beside her.

Jason and Annabeth's feet stopped short, but Piper continued to walk until she realized only too late that they had finally found the barn they had been looking for last night… by walking straight into it. Piper backed away, feeling silly, and took in the sight before her.

It was like any old barn, complete with worn red paint and a metal rooster blowing in the wind on the roof, except for the small fact that the barn was bigger than most New York sky scrapers. Chickens clucked, roaming freely around the huge building.

"_Eggs!_" Jason shouted, staring at an especially fat hen. Just the word had Piper's mouth watering.

"Yeah…eggs," she said under her breath as she stumbled to the barn door.

"Guys, wait," Annabeth said, and Piper felt agitated at her. Annabeth had stolen the eye and Annabeth had caused the car accident. She was ruining Piper's quest.

"You can stay here if you don't want to come inside, _Annabeth._"Piper packed as much malice into her name as she could, though somewhere in the back of her head, Piper knew that she wouldn't have treated her friend this way if she had slept in a comfortable bed on a full stomach.

"Piper, look at the size of it! We aren't on a normal farm. Don't you think we should be prepared for whatever could be inside of it?" said Annabeth.

"Eggs are inside of it. This is my quest and I'm responsible for keeping us fed, so I'm going to get some. Are you coming or not?"

Annabeth took a last wary glance at the enormous structure, pulled out a knife, and stepped forward. "Let's go, then."

Three experienced demigods probably ought to be used to seeing strange things, but Piper's jaw dropped, Annabeth gasped, and Jason's stomach growled anxiously. Jason grabbed both of their arms and pulled them back behind the door.

"Was that…an eagle?" he asked. Piper had been wondering the same thing, for the creature did indeed seem like one, but its sheer size suggested otherwise.

"The _Aetos Kaukasios_," said Annabeth, which cleared up absolutely nothing.

"What?" Jason and Piper asked at the same time.

"I think it was the Caucasian Eagle. It's said that it fed upon Prometheus' regenerating liver as he was chained to the peak of Mount Kaukasos as a punishment from Zeus until Hercules freed him," she explained. "I think this is probably the wrong place for breakfast."

A caw that was clearly an eagle's escaped the barn, so loud it nearly blew them all away.

"Did it see us?" Piper asked, fearing the worst.

As if to answer her question, one enormous foot stepped out from the entrance, followed by another. Then, standing before them, was the biggest bird Piper had ever seen.

"_LIVER?"_ it cawed at them.

Gross, Piper thought. She had eaten goose liver once at one of her father's friend's houses on a guarantee that it was some sort of delicious delicacy. It took everything she had not to gag it back up.

"Got any ideas?" Jason asked, flipping his magical coin into a sword. Though it had been broken last year, one of the Hephaestus kids had fixed it for him. Unfortunately, it still didn't work the way it used to. The weapon flickered somewhere between a blade, a spear, and Roman currency.

"Maybe I can speak to it?" Piper said, though she felt pretty unsure. She had never tried to charmspeak poultry. She directed her attention to the eagle and said, "We don't have any liver…uh, big guy. We're your friends, remember? You told us that if we came you would give us some nice fresh eggs."

It had seemed to be working up until she mentioned eggs. The eagle spread its gigantic wings and roared so loud it knocked them on their backs. Piper hadn't even known eagles _could_ roar.

"New plan: distract it!" Annabeth shouted, taking out a Yankee's cap.

"What are you going to do, impress it with your baseball skills?" Piper asked, until Annabeth put it on her head and disappeared. Meanwhile, the eagle ran forward and began pecking at the ground where Piper and Jason stood. "Annabeth, whatever you're doing, do it quickly!"

Jason rolled out of the path of the bird's beak, which was now hovering over them, fixed on its prey.

"LIVER!" it cawed again.

Piper tried to slash it with her knife, but the eagle was much too high in the air for it to make purchase.

"Keep its attention!" Annabeth shouted from somewhere inside of the barn.

Jason shot a lightning bolt at the eagle, which really seemed to tire him out, and Piper grew more and more panicked. Just as the eagle moved in for a kill strike, it seemed to have a change of heart and it sat perfectly still, letting out what sounded like little moans.

"There you go," Piper heard Annabeth say. She appeared a moment later sitting at the neck of the bird with three arrows in one hand and her magical cap in the other. Jason had fallen onto the ground at some point, and he laughed as Piper helped him back onto his feet.

"You didn't jump onto it from the roof of the barn, did you?" he asked her.

"Well, I was planning on climbing up on the bird's feathers, but then he started flying. And anyway, there was a ladder leading right up there. It seemed the logical move… if you have very little self-preservation."

"What are the arrows from?" Piper asked, so relieved to be alive that she forgot being hungry and began laughing.

"The myth goes that Hercules shot the down the eagle with a volley of arrows. I figured that if we helped the eagle, he might help us. It was a long shot, but I knew that if the arrows were still lodged into the bird's back, I could remove them in the hope that he might spare our lives. I… I think that if you two were really careful, you could climb on and we could ride him."

Jason had the same skeptical look on his face that Piper could feel forming on her own, but Annabeth had proven that her promise to never put them in danger was true. Piper felt like she had to trust her.

"That would get us to Alaska, but what about the E-G-G-S?" Piper spelled out, so that the eagle wouldn't hear. It was a good thing "eggs" was an easy word, since all three of the demigods were dyslexic.

Annabeth put a finger to her lips, signifying that she had solved that problem as well, but didn't want to speak about it with a sensitive and murderous bird of prey within earshot. That suited Piper just fine.

"Let's do this," Jason said. He slowly walked behind the bird and climbed its tail feathers until he sat close to Annabeth's back. He made a face which Piper didn't understand until she was sitting up with the other two heroes. The eagle smelled awful.

"Eh-em… Eagle," Annabeth addressed the bird, "if you don't mind… we'd like to get to Alaska. Oh, this is silly, I'm speaking to an overgrown-" but her words were cut off as the eagle took flight.

"I guess he understood!" Jason yelled, wind rushing into his face and making his cheeks flutter.

"Or we're in for a very long flight to nowhere!" said Piper. Either way, it was exhilarating. The eagle was soft and warm, much different from the automaton dragon that she had flown on during Jason's quest. Piper felt her muscles relax as she watched the landscape pass far below.

Jason's torso twisted so that he was facing her in what appeared to be a rather awkward position. "Annabeth saysbottoms up," he told Piper, handing her an egg with a small hole cracked into the top.

"Mm, raw egg," Piper said, trying to sound more enthusiastic.

"It won't kill you… if it isn't carrying any diseases."

"_Bon appétit_," Piper said, and nearly drank the raw egg, when she looked below and saw a pair of monsters—the cannibals that Annabeth had mentioned by the looks of it—attacking one of their own kind. "Never mind. I'm not so hungry anymore."

Jason and Annabeth nodded and the three of them simultaneously dropped their eggs. One after another, the eggs crashed onto the cannibals' heads. Then the bird passed and the monsters were out of sight.

"That's Canada for you. It's a great place for mortals to live, but it's where tired old monsters go when they're sick of demigods. I'll be glad when we're back in New York," Annabeth said.

Jason mentioned something about San Francisco being even more monster infested, but Piper was no longer paying attention, for she had noticed something: a glint of gold on Annabeth's neck that had not been there before.

It was a necklace, and Annabeth had found it at the barn, Piper was sure of it. There was something about it that made Piper look away, feeling something between fear and reverence. She wasn't sure what this necklace meant, but Annabeth was hiding something, and it was big.


	11. Chapter 11

Chiron's plan had been to use the Capture the Flag game to both alleviate the tension that had begun ever since the winter solstice and separate the campers from the satyrs. Everyone knew about the disappearance of Nyssa, but only Chiron, Leo, and Nico knew about Coach Hedge.

Leo wished he could have gone with Chiron to visit the satyrs, but the Hephaestus cabin was a leading team in the game tonight, and Leo's mind was quickly filled with strategies.

"Technically, it's Poseidon's cabin's flag," one of Leo's half-brother's explained, "but since our only Poseidon kid is AWOL, and we were his biggest ally last time, we get the flag. It's the first time in years I've seen a hammer on that banner."

He held up a hand and Leo high-fived it.

"Lets go!" Leo yelled to his group of heroes. As they ran into the forest, Leo asked Travis and Connor Stoll from the Hermes cabin about the traps they had placed in order to defend the flag as the first line of defense. There was a second line of defense on the creek, which would bounce back from side to side depending on what the other team did. The third group, Demeter's cabin, was in charge of offense.

Leo ran straight into a clearing—the place where they hid the flag. Well, it wasn't so much hiding as a ploy to catch the Athena team—the opposing side—in the traps that Travis and Connor had placed.

"We had Katie Gardener and the rest of the Demeter kids grow grass over the wax paper covering the pits around the flag, and—" Connor began.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa… We dug pits?" Leo asked.

"Took all night," said Travis. "Our shovels are awful." He held up his hands and revealed bright red blisters.

"Gross." Leo poured some nectar from his canteen onto Travis' hands and they healed up immediately.

"Thanks, man. So anyway, we were thinking… what's your opinion on hydra venom?"

"No."

"That's a no on the venom, guys!" Connor called to seemingly no one.

"Aw," came a collective groan from several trees.

A horn blew, signifying that the game had begun.

"I need to get to the creek," Leo said. "Don't do anything stupid!" he added to any son or daughter of Hermes who was unseen, then ran away.

The creek was about a quarter mile away, and Leo reached it relatively quickly.

"Any action yet?" Leo asked Michael.

"There were a couple of weak attempts by some Ares kids, just to test out the defenses. The Athena kids are up to something, though. They always are," he replied darkly.

Looking at the water, Leo could see why this Percy kid controlled the flag. It was impossible to cross into enemy territory without passing over Percy's domain. Suddenly, an idea came to him. Leo closed his eyes and concentrated.

"What are you doing?" Michael asked.

"Just wait a second," Leo said, keeping his eyes tight shut. It started out as light flickering on the near edge of the creek, but it grew taller and taller until there was a five-foot-tall flame traveling both left and right, with only one opening, directly in front of Michael.

"Keep an eye open for me," Leo mumbled to him.

Michael laughed. "You're the boss."

Minutes passed but no one came and Leo became exhausted. Without even opening his eyes, Leo could sense the fire growing weaker.

"What's Katie up to?" Leo asked Michael.

"I can't tell. She better move fast, though, or the Athena kids will think of some… wait… I think I see her."

Leo was so surprised to hear that his plan was actually working that he stopped concentrating and let the fire die completely.

"Hey!" Leo heard an indignant cry from somewhere near the clearing. Leo turned around just in time to be slammed in the face by the fist of an Apollo kid. Leo drew a hammer from his magical tool belt and went into attack mode.

Leo's first swing was deflected by a shield. He realized that the boy was here to distract, not to take the flag. Of course, that wouldn't stop this kid from seriously injuring Leo.

"I got it," said Daisy Allen, another daughter of Demeter. She had a mean look in her eyes, and in a moment, the boy was tied in vines.

"Thanks," Leo said, though he was no longer looking at her. He caught sight of Clarisse leaping over the hidden pits (how could they have known about that?) followed by Zach Brady, son of Athena, carrying the Hephaestus flag.

Clarisse was like a machine, pushing away any hero that was in Zach's way.

"It's okay, Katie's fast," Michael shouted over the clinging of his sword against Dionysus' son Pollux's dagger. It was true, Katie was one of the fastest sprinter's at the camp, but she had no one to guard her.

"We need to stop them," Leo told Daisy.

"I- I don't know if I can do it again," she said.

But it didn't matter. A wall of black stone sprang from the ground between Clarisse and Zach. There was a thumping sound and a cry of pain. Leo guessed Zach ran into the stone and broke his nose.

"Nice one!" Michael shouted as he threw Pollux into the creek.

Katie leaped into the Hephaestus territory and Leo's team cheered. Clarisse cursed and kicked the black stone wall, resulting in more curses when she stubbed her toe.

"Was that one of the traps?" Daisy asked.

"Um, no," Leo said. A dark figure stepped out from behind a cluster of trees and Daisy gasped. "This is Nico di Angelo, son of Hades."

Everybody stared him like he was some sort of monster.

"Hi," he said awkwardly. Nico's face was always pale, but it looked especially colorless while he was being scrutinized.

"Hi, Nico," Daisy said, stepping forward. She shook his hand, and everyone began greeting him like he was an ordinary camper. The poor guy still looked uncomfortable, but he kept his eyes locked on Daisy, and Leo thought for just a moment, that even someone as unusual as Nico could find a home at this camp. Unfortunately, the moment was cut short by Chiron galloping into the forest at high speed.

"The satyrs are gone," Chiron said, sounding a bit breathless. "All of them. I've looked everywhere.

Somewhere in the distance, Leo heard weeping and he was sure it was coming from the nymphs.

"Whad do you mean dey're gone? Dey can't jus disappear," said Zach, who was nursing a bleeding and crooked nose.

"I'm afraid they have," Chiron told them morosely.

"But we just saw them this morning at breakfast," Daisy told him. "How could they all be gone?"

"I fear that they have been disappearing for weeks." Chiron explained how Coach Hedge had mysteriously left. "The satyr kind has grown more distant from demigods ever since the Titan War, when they lost so many. I believe that whenever one of the satyrs disappeared, it was because they were alone. They had been avoiding the woods, because it was the place where satyrs went missing. And the second that we separate ourselves, they all vanish."

"First Nyssa, now the satyrs! It could be anyone next!" someone shouted.

"No," Chiron said. "We will be prepared. We learned from Nyssa that you can be taken in your sleep… so there will always be someone awake at all times through the night in cabins. I want everyone to travel in at least groups of three no matter where they go."

"What about me?" Pollux asked, dripping wet from his fall into the creek. "I'm the only one in my cabin."

"Or our cabin," said Clovis, son of Hypnos. "We're always sleeping." As if to make a point, his half sister started snoring on the ground. "Hey, that moss looks comfortable," he mumbled.

"At this point, I see no purpose in the separation of cabins. You may bunk where you wish," Chiron said. The poor centaur looked worn out.

"We have a lot of space in the cabin nine," Leo said. "Because of all the work we've done underground, there are empty places everywhere."

"I… there are places in the Hades cabin, too." Nico sounded timid. Leo felt bad for him, because Chiron was now forcing Nico to be with people 24/7. That wasn't really something Nico enjoyed.

Chiron nodded, but looked barely satisfied. "Your fellow heroes are in danger. If you wish to survive, you will stay together. Do not fall apart." Then Chiron looked directly at Leo. "No matter what you're doing, you must never be alone. Because if you are, the enemy, whoever it may be, can and probably will take you."


	12. Chapter 12

In all, fifteen campers chose to join Camp Half-Blood's guard. Leo would have liked to say he was the first camper to volunteer when Clarisse asked for soldiers, but in truth, it had been Nico. He just glanced at Daisy and his hand shot up like a rocket before Leo could even think about raising his own.

They had all agreed- much to Leo's dismay- that the guard's headquarters would be the Ares cabin. There were to be ten campers on watch at all times, four resting, and one keeping watch over the four while they slept. Every four hours, the five in the Ares cabin were rotated.

Right now, Leo stayed in some unknown kid of Ares' stinky bunk, trying to take a nap, but all he could think about was that joining the guard meant abandoning the _Argo II_. It was nice to get a break, but Leo could feel that the ship was his destiny to build. There was no way he wanted to just leave it behind and throw the duty of bringing the _Argo II's_ complicated design to life on one of his brothers' or sisters' shoulders.

"Worried?" Nico asked him in a whisper from the bunk directly to his left.

Leo didn't feel like answering, but eventually he mumbled, "Yeah. How did you know?"

Nico laughed. "Because you've been flicking your thumb like a lighter for the past half hour. I guess I thought it was a nervous habit."

It was true. Leo had been putting his hand in the thumbs-up position and absent-mindedly letting a flames glow off and on at the tip of his thumb.

"Oh," Leo said, noticing what he had been doing for the first time, "sorry. Was I keeping you awake?"

"Nah," Nico said, "I don't sleep a whole lot at night. I'm backwards like that. So what's eating you?"

Leo sighed. "The _Argo_ II. I know I'm supposed to work on it, but I also feel like I need to defend the camp. I should be building a ship, but there's no way I'm going to leave the security of Camp Half-Blood in the incapable hands of Clarisse."

"Hey, hey," came a voice that at first Leo mistook for Nico's, "watch it guys. That's my girlfriend you're talking about."

"Who is that?" Leo asked at the same time Nico said, "Sorry, Chris. How's lookout going?"

"Swell, Nico. The name's Chris Rodriguez. Son of Hermes and boyfriend of the girl you just knocked."

"Oh," Leo said. He had vague memories of a one-handed boy sitting next to Clarisse at campfires. If Leo hadn't been ADD, he probably would have said something like "sorry," but instead he blurted out, "How did you lose your hand?"

Leo inhaled sharply, as if trying to suck the words back in, but they had already escaped his mouth, and there was no way to take them back. "Sorry," he said, much too late.

"Jeez, kid, got manners?" Chris asked, and Leo knew he'd hit a sore spot.

"Sorry," he repeated like an idiot.

"Or brains?" Nico laughed.

"Whatever, kid. I'll tell you how I lost my hand. Since you're supposedly one of the chosen seven, you should probably know what you'll be up against for the rest of your life, however long it may be."

The way Chris spoke- solemn and ominous- was enough to scare Leo. It was a voice he had heard before occasionally in Annabeth and Clarisse whenever they spoke about the Titan War. He had even heard Jason use that voice before.

"When Lord Kronos died- well, turned to ashes at least- everybody thought all our problems were over. That Percy had saved us all. And he had, no doubt about it. But no one anticipated that his army would just reform. Nobody thought that some gods would still support what Kronos stood for. The celebrations were still going strong a week after Kronos' reign ended. I went to help out a satyr on a scouting mission when I ran into an entire battalion of monsters. My plan was to sneak away before any of them saw me, but as I turned, one of them intercepted me. He took me by surprise and got my hand. But I took more than a hand from him," he said darkly, and Leo knew the monster had been sent straight to Tartarus.

Leo tried to imagine what Chris must have gone through. To be afraid of death for so long and finally find hope, just to have his hand chopped off by a single ugly beast. Leo would have been well beyond angry. He would have been apathetic. He would have let himself die.

"I lost too much blood to run away, but I couldn't call for help in case the other monsters heard me. I don't know why, but it was Lord Hephaestus who saved me. Maybe it was because he knew my father was grieving too much over losing Luke to come to my aid, but Hephaestus gave me a new hand and took me back to camp." Chris held up his prosthetic hand. It was celestial bronze, so it gave off a dull glow in the dark room. The fingers moved just like any natural fingers would, but Leo knew that his father wouldn't have stopped at natural. A hand created by Hephaestus was probably more of a deadly weapon than the sharpest blade Camp Half-Blood could supply.

"Who was Luke?" Leo asked. "Nobody will answer me when I ask about him."

"He was a hero," Nico said at the same time Chris said, "He was a traitor."

"He was both," Chris amended. "I guess I shouldn't judge him too harshly. We were both traitors, and we both changed. It cost me my mind and him his body before we could see the light. The only difference is that there was a god to save me before I died, while there was none for my half-brother. Luke was responsible for both the rise and fall of Kronos."

Leo was still confused by a lot of things, but he guessed that it would take days and several different story tellers to learn the full story of the Titan War, so he just sat in silence.

He wasn't sure when he had drifted into sleep, but then next thing Leo saw was a golden pendant of an eagle, dangling off of a girl's neck. There was a flash of brilliant green eyes... or were they brown? Then the pendant was tucked into a red sweater and Leo's dream shifted off into nothingness.

"Time to wake up, punks!" a loud voice bellowed some time later. Then, just to be sure that Leo was conscious, a fist socked him in the gut.

"Thanks, Clarisse," Leo coughed, not needing to open his eyes to see who had delivered the rude awakening.

"C'mon," Nico said as Leo rubbed his eyes, "let's go defend this stupid camp for our stupid leader."

"Oh, go to Hades," Clarisse said.

"I already have," Nico laughed.

Clarisse dumped a box of granola bars on a table. "Here's breakfast. You can eat it on your way out. Some of us have been working hard and need sleep."

"More like a midnight snack," Daisy said, walking through the door and into the Ares cabin, dressed in full battle armor.

Leo glanced at his watch. 12:03 am. His body was going to get seriously confused by this schedule.

As Leo threw on his armor and grabbed a granola bar he watched three more heroes enter: Travis Stoll, Zach Bradey, and Katie Gardener.

"So... tired," Zach mumbled in an Australian accent. He was among the handful of foreign demigods to come to camp.

"How's the nose, Bradey?" Nico asked.

"Nothing a little ambrosia can't handle. And sleep." He looked longingly at Leo's bunk.

"Yeah. Sleep is good," Katie muttered. She crashed in a chair, not even making the effort to walk to a bed.

"It's only midnight, you guys. We've stayed up later at the campfire," Leo said.

"You weren't out there," Travis said. "It was like we were fighting drowsiness instead of monsters. Can't you feel it? The only place I want to be right now is in bed."

"Where's Chris?" Clarisse asked. For the first time, Leo noticed the absence of the boy he had spoken to earlier. "He was just here, I saw him a minute ago."

Nico and Clarisse made eye contact and Leo knew they were thinking the same thing: _not again_.

"We have to go looking for him," Leo said.

Zach whimpered and Clarisse nodded.

"He might just be out there already," she said in a not-so-hopeful voice. Even as Clarisse spoke the entire cabin seemed to sigh.

"No," Nico said when Katie Gardener stood up and seemed to fall back down. "You guys should stay here. We'll go out and look for him," he motioned to himself and the others who had just rested.

"You think I'm going to sit here while my boyfriend could be dead, punk?" Clarisse looked outraged.

"He isn't dead, I know that much for sure," he replied.

"That's a real comfort! He isn't dead, but I should just relax until he is? I'm not going to let that happen. Can't you see that sleep has become our enemy? We're all falling over where we stand, Nyssa disappeared in her sleep, and I'll bet you anything Chris was feeling pretty tired after he skipped rest period to keep an eye on you. He's probably sleep walking straight to his death!" Clarisse yelled a lot, but Leo had never heard her shout a valid point before.

"You're right," Leo said. "We've been looking at this all wrong. It isn't a guard we need… it's coffee." On a usual day, hearing that sentence would have been hilarious, but as it was, the other heroes in the cabin nodded solemnly.

"I can get some Coke rationed for everyone," Travis said. Everyone looked at him funny because that sort of thing was against the rules at camp. "What? I know a guy, okay?"

"I'm going to lead a rescue mission to see if we can find him," said Clarisse. "You get us some of that Coke, pronto. And you," she looked at Leo, "find a way to get that ship of yours in the air. The sooner we find Percy the sooner we can get this Great Prophecy started. This has got to be connected somehow, and we can't go without sleep for much longer."

No one made a move. They all just looked at each other, wondering who would be the next to disappear.

"_GO!_" Clarisse screamed.

Everyone rushed around. Zach and Katie seemed to forget their need for sleep and went to Clarisse, saying something about joining her on the rescue team.

"Got any ideas?" Daisy shouted to Leo over the noise.

"Yeah!" he replied. "First, I want to talk to the Hecate cabin about magic. Then, I want to Iris message Jason and tell him to get moving. Even if I can get this ship off the ground there will be no Great Prophecy without him and Percy!"

Daisy smiled at him and Leo noticed for the first time how pretty her hazel eyes were with her caramel colored hair.

"You'd better get a move on, then," she said.

Leo turned, wondering where the best place to send a message would be.

"And Leo!" Daisy called. Leo spun around and faced her. "Try not to fall asleep. We really can't afford to lose you."

Leo smiled at her. It was good to be needed.


	13. Chapter 13

For the first hour riding a giant eagle was awesome, but it was still March, so flying through Canada got pretty cold pretty quickly. If the bird hadn't generated so much heat, Jason was sure he would have frozen. Even still, he could feel Annabeth shivering in front of him.

"I could take the front for a while," he told her. "You're getting hit with all the wind."

"No, that's okay," Annabeth replied. "I like it. It sounds silly, but sitting up front makes me feel just a few feet closer to my goal… like I'm doing as much as I possibly can. You know?"

Honestly, Jason had no idea. But Annabeth seemed to be precariously balanced on her sanity's rusted lifeline, and telling her she was crazy just didn't seem like the thing to do.

"Yeah, I know what you mean," he said.

After that, Annabeth fell silent. It was a little difficult to talk when the wind whistled in their ears.

At some point Piper's head rested on Jason's shoulder and he knew she was asleep. It wasn't like he should have been tired or anything since it was probably only about 3 in the afternoon, but empty stomachs tend to drain people. Finally, Jason could no longer resist, and he succumbed to sleep as well.

Suddenly he returned to a place he knew he had been before. He stumbled up from the cement floor that he had been lying on and helped a girl up: _Reyna_. Jason was sure that was her name.

"Where's Cal?" she asked Jason. Together they scanned the room. They appeared to be in some sort of rundown factory. The place was covered in shelves and piles of merchandise, but there was no sign of their friend Calvin.

"What happened?" Jason asked Reyna after a moment of trying to make sense of the past few hours.

"We… we found the necklace just like Lady Juno asked you to. It was all completely undetected, though. The monsters shouldn't have found us. It was your lightning that caused the explosion. The monsters were killed, but… you don't think Cal could've been with them during the explosion do you?"

Jason felt a pool of guilt rise in his chest. When he used the lightning bolt to blow up that section of the factory he had been trying to save their lives. If Calvin had died because of him, Jason would never be able to forgive himself.

Reyna reached for Jason's hand and he let her take it. After all that Lady Juno had told him about remaining single, he still wanted to be with Reyna. Juno promised him that his future was too great, and that he had no time for relationships, but Juno was not his mother. At that moment Jason vowed that if he ever finished his quest alive he would ask Reyna out.

"Cute," said a voice Jason recognized from behind. It was familiar, yet much more menacing than it should have been.

Jason and Reyna dropped hands and spun around to face the speaker. In a second, Jason had his sword ready and Reyna had an arrow notched in her bow.

"Calvin," Reyna said in relief when she saw his face, but Jason didn't relax. There was something odd about the way he looked at the two of them.

"Where've you been, Calvin?" Jason asked. Calvin laughed, making the scar that marred his otherwise handsome face bounce and finally everything fell into place. Calvin had warned the monsters that they would be coming. He had been the one to set the trap.

"I was with my friends, of course." As he spoke, three disgusting giants turned a corner and stood beside him. Reyna shot an arrow at the forehead of the nearest one, but it just bounced off its smelly gray skin.

The giant laughed and mumbled, "Stop it; that tickles."

"Shut up," Calvin told it, and the giant looked down at him with a grudging expression.

"Why are you doing this, Calvin?" Reyna asked.

"Don't call me that anymore, I only used that name to protect my true identity. I've never been like you Romans. I just came to your camp to kill you." Calvin—or whatever his name was—pointed at Jason and smiled. "Or to convert you. Your father never loved you, he gave you to Hera. Fight with the Titans and get back at him. Join my master's cause and you can live like a king."

"I'll never join you or your stupid master." Jason tried to spit the words out with as much malice as he could muster, but there was something that Calvin said that bothered him. Like a ring of truth.

"Fine. Then you'll die like a pathetic weakling." Calvin made a gesture with one of his hands and the three giants stepped forward, drawing clubs, while he whistled a sharp note. A beautiful black steed flew in from somewhere nearby. He jumped onto it and flew away.

"Coward!" Reyna shouted at him. She shot an arrow at his shrinking figure, but he was already well out of range.

"Don't waste your arrows," Jason advised. "We have bigger things to worry about." That's when the giants attacked.

"Almost there." Annabeth's voice brought Jason back to reality.

"Did you see a sign?" Piper asked her.

"No, but the eagle is descending. That must mean we're getting close."

"Thank goodness," Piper said.

As Annabeth foretold, buildings began to appear and a giant sign read "Welcome to Alaska!"

"Okay, take us to Iris, boy," Annabeth said to her new pet bird. The eagle flew for about twenty-five more minutes and arrived at an island.

Piper was eager to get both her feet on the ground, and Jason was happy to leave the bird as well, since it smelled like chicken… well… it didn't smell good. Annabeth was a little more reluctant to leave the feathery friend, though. It bent its face down and she rubbed it just above the beak. If eagles could purr, this one was definitely doing it.

"I'm going to have to go talk to Iris, now," she told it.

"Liver?" the giant bird replied, which Jason interpreted to mean, "Are you coming back?"

"Don't worry, we'll be back in a little bit," Annabeth said. "Why don't you go find some nice vegetarian things to eat, okay?"

The eagle nipped playfully at her hair, then spread its giant wings and took off.

Annabeth sighed and pretended not to notice the strange looks Jason and Piper were giving her.

"Shall we?" Annabeth pointed toward a large house made almost entirely of glass. It reflected the sunlight and gave off rainbows, which Jason thought would've been pretty cool if it hadn't been too bright to look at.

The three of them staggered for about two steps when Annabeth said, "Hang on. I think I have sunglasses in my bag."

As she knelt down to pull out three pairs of shades, a necklace fell from inside Annabeth's shirt.

Jason looked at Piper and her multi-colored eyes flashed with suspicion.

"I know that necklace," Jason said. He wasn't sure how, but the pendant reminded him of something he had seen long ago.

Annabeth stuffed it back into her shirt before Jason could study it any longer.

"Of course you don't. Percy gave this to me," she said. "Let's keep going."

Annabeth tossed both Jason and Piper a pair of sunglasses, which made it much easier to walk toward the cabin. He refused to forget about the pendant, but there were more pressing matters at hand.

Before they had even reached the front door an image began to form in front of them.  
"Leo?" Jason asked. He could see the face of his best friend floating in a cloud of mist, but there was something off about his face. Usually, Leo looked pretty happy, but now he looked determined and sleepy—and strange combination in Jason's opinion.

"Hey, guys, nice sunglasses. Sorry to interrupt your little quest thing, but there's a lot going on back at camp. Something is causing people to fall asleep and disappear." Leo stopped talking just long enough to take a swig of what looked like Coke. "If you don't get a move on, I'm afraid we're all going to sleep walk right to the enemy."

"We leave you guys alone for just a couple days, and all Hades breaks loose," said Piper.

Annabeth grimaced as if she were in pain. "Campers are disappearing?" Leo nodded. "That's what Percy said about the Romans, too. We're all going through the same stuff."

"And whoever was on that airplane when it crashed must be the one making everyone fall asleep."

Leo, Annabeth, and Piper all gave Jason quizzical looks and Jason realized he had never actually filled anyone in on the exact details of the crash. Quickly, Jason went through the story, all the while wondering how he could have forgotten to tell anyone what had happened.

"That isn't good," Annabeth informed him, which Jason thought was a little obvious. "Back in the Titan War, Morpheus put the entire city of Manhattan to sleep. But something is still bothering me…"

"What?" asked Leo, "The part where people are going missing, the part where your boyfriend is with the Romans, the part where we're being forced to sleep against our will—?"

"Shut up, you know what I meant." Annabeth scowled at Leo. "What's bothering me is that Jason said that this guy is trying to kill off the demigods in exchange for the safety of his own children. Morpheus doesn't have any kids at Camp Half-Blood."

"So?" Piper said. "He might have Roman kids."

"I guess…"

"_Insert one gold drachma_, _please._" said a cool woman's voice on Leo's end.

"That was my last one. I have to go guys. Just hurry!"

The image fluttered out of sight and the three were left alone. Jason felt a little longing in his chest. It had only been a couple days, but already Jason was missing Camp Half-Blood. He was busy picturing a plate full of barbecue in the comfort of the camp when he was interrupted by Annabeth and Piper gasping.

Jason looked up and saw the outline of a woman past the light reflecting off of the glass cabin.

"Hello, children," she said. "You must be hungry."


	14. Chapter 14

Once inside the cabin, it was much easier to see. The three demigods removed their glasses. Iris led them to a glass table lit by a crystal chandelier. It was piled so high with food that Jason wondered how the table didn't shatter.

"Please, help yourselves," she beckoned them. Jason didn't need to be convinced. He rushed to the table and grabbed the nearest thing his hand could reach: a turkey sandwich. He stuffed it into his mouth without bothering to take a plate.

"Thank you, Lady Iris," Annabeth said, after the three had filled themselves to their hearts' content.

"You are very welcome, dear," she said. For the first time, Jason looked her in the face and realized he had thought she would look older. The way she addressed them like children reminded him of a middle aged woman. In truth, Iris looked barely older than Annabeth; maybe twenty years old.

"You are welcome at my home for as long as you like," she continued. "Please, make yourselves comfortable." Iris waved her hands around the grand room as a gesture to show that her home was open to them.

"Why are you doing this for us?" Piper asked. "Aren't the gods trying to be distant?"

Iris pursed her lips. "Lord Hermes is messenger god, but I am truly the one who handles the messages. There's always a part of me serving somewhere else. Last year, I left Olympus and went to my summer home as a protest against Zeus' decree that we were not to have anything to do with demigods. I have not been on good terms with Zeus for a very long time."

Annabeth nodded. "Chiron told me what happened between you two."

"What happened?" asked Jason. He saw Annabeth shaking her head out of the corner of his eye. Apparently, that was a touchy subject.

Iris' eyes burned for a moment as she studied Jason.

"You are the son of Jupiter, are you not?" she inquired.

"Yes, Lady Iris, but I hardly know him. Juno is my ward."

Iris seemed to relax. "I know, I know. I never judge a demigod by his or her parentage. You just… you look a bit like your father. Please—I have welcomed you into my home—all I ask is that no matter what you see here, do not ask me about that again."

"Of course, Lady," Piper agreed.

"Good. Then, I believe it is time that I introduce you to someone. He is also a demigod using my cabin as refuge." Iris turned to a door that Jason had not noticed before and said, "You may come, now."

Annabeth and Piper both looked confused.

"What did she just say?" Piper whispered.

"She was just telling someone to come out and say hello. Why? Didn't you hear her?" he replied.

"She was speaking in Latin," Annabeth mumbled.

A dark haired boy entered the room. He looked vaguely familiar, and before Jason could wonder why, Annabeth cleared things right up.

"Percy," she breathed.

"But… that's not Percy," Piper said, confused. "I've seen him before in a dream."

"What?" the boy asked, looking at the two girls. "What do you know about me?"

Jason didn't like this boy at all. The moment Piper said she'd been dreaming about him, something twisted in his gut. Nobody invaded his friends' dreams.

"Who is this?" Jason asked Iris.

"We do not know. I found him on a San Francisco beach last month. There was a wonderful storm going on out there, and I'm everywhere you can find a rainbow. That's where I found him, crawling out of the water," Iris explained.

It was a strange story, but most stories were strange for demidods, and Jason thought this one seemed fairly solid. Piper, for some reason, was not convinced, though.

"You're lying. You knew who he was the moment you saw him," she said. Jason could only stare at her. How could she accuse anyone so kind of dishonesty?

"Daughter of Aphrodite." Iris said. "I had some ideas about his identity, but they were impossible. I will speak no more on this matter." She swept up her long dress and glided from the room, leaving the four demigods standing awkwardly together.

"What do you know?" the boy asked Piper.

She opened her mouth and hesitated. "Not much, to be honest. In my dream, I saw Iris find you. When she saw you I know she recognized you. She said, 'how are you alive?'"

"Well, maybe that's because he was coming out of a stormy ocean," Annabeth said. "He was probably half-dead."

"I don't think so. I could feel Iris' emotions. When she looked at you, I could feel her broken heart."

Annabeth sighed. "Broken heart?" she asked.

"Yes, her broken heart."

"Why was her heart broken?" the boy wondered.

"There's only one story that I know of where Iris' heart was broken," Annabeth said.

"What is it?" The boy's voice grew impatient.

"Let me guess," Jason said. "It involved my father?"

"Bingo," said Annabeth.

"What is it!" the boy cried.

"You're dead!" Annabeth replied, which shut everyone else up. "Maybe eighty years ago, a son of Poseidon fell in love with Iris. It has been forbidden for gods and demigods to have a relationship like that for a really long time. So, Zeus stripped you of your godly powers and cast you into the ocean to drown."

"But I'm not dead," he said.

"Nice observation, Captain Obvious," Jason told him.

"Monsters aren't staying in Tartarus, villains aren't staying in the Underworld. Maybe the Doors of Death are open to demigods now, too," Annabeth hypothesized.

The Captain stood in silence for a moment. It was probably a little tough to process the fact that he was recently un-departed, Jason gave him that.

"You… you never heard my name, did you?" he asked.

Annabeth thought for a moment. "Your name was Sean. That's all I know."

Sean smiled. "That's enough for me. Thank you." Then he turned around and ran in the same direction as Iris.

"That was… strange," Piper said once he was out of sight.

"So, what now?" Jason asked Piper, deciding to leave the next course of action to the quest leader.

Piper yawned. "Well," she began, "we've completed the first two lines of the prophecy: first, we ran from Camp Half-Blood, then we traveled to the land of the midnight sun."

Piper paused and Jason knew she was remembering the next stanza of the prophecy.

"Why don't we spend the night here?" Jason prompted. "We'll rest up, eat a real breakfast, and then somehow bribe Iris into telling us how to reach the Roman camp. She hates my father enough that she might reveal that secret to us out of spite."

Piper seemed to appreciate Jason's words but Annabeth groaned.

"Guys, as much as I hate to stay awake any longer, we need to go. You remember what Leo said; people are disappearing from camp. The faster we go the more lives we can save," she said.

Though Annabeth was making complete sense, Jason couldn't help but wonder whether she had ulterior motives. She was so anxious to see Percy she would deprive herself of rest until she found him... if she found him.

"Annabeth," Piper said, "we're making good time. We were riding on the eagle for about a day, right? So we've only been gone for about three days. We'll be there soon enough, but Leo said that sleep was the cause of the trouble. Right now, this is the safest place we could take a nap. That way, we'll be rested and not in danger of falling asleep anywhere else. If one of us disappeared it would be my fault. I can't handle that."

"Please," Annabeth murmured. "Please…" she paused for a moment and her eyes narrowed slightly, then her voice grew stronger, "Please ask Iris where the Roman camp is tonight, so that we can leave right away in the morning."

Part of Jason knew that she was trying to learn the location of the Roman camp so that she could sneak away that night when everyone was asleep, but a larger part of Jason seemed to want to believe her. Her words washed over him in waves like charmspeak and he was immediately convinced that speaking to Iris was absolutely the right thing to do.

"Yeah, that sounds good to me," said Jason.

"It does?" Piper and Annabeth both asked, looking equally surprised.

"Sure. We need to leave as soon as possible in the morning. We should go to Iris." Jason took a step in the direction that Sean and Lady Iris had gone, but Piper stopped him.

"Okay," she said. "I'll ask her, but I want to go alone. It's only necessary that I hear where we need to go." Piper looked pointedly at Annabeth.

"But I'm from the Roman camp!" Jason said, indignantly. "What if she says something that I should hear?"

"Piper," Annabeth said in the same voice she had used before, "let me come with you."

Piper scoffed. "I've never heard of a daughter of Athena charmspeaking before, but don't you dare try using that on me again." With that, she turned and left Jason and Annabeth together.

Annabeth slumped forward, defeated.

"What was that?" Jason asked. She looked up at him and Jason could see guilt in her eyes.

"I'm not sure. But I think it has something to do with this," she pulled out the golden pendant from beneath her shirt and Jason studied it. It was an eagle with ruby eyes and outstretched wings.

"That wasn't a gift from Percy, was it?" Jason asked.

"No, I found it when I climbed onto the roof of the barn. You know how barns sometimes have metal roosters which blow with the wind?"

Jason nodded.

"Well, from a distance, it looked like there was one on top of the giant barn, too. But it was actually this." Annabeth tugged the necklace from her neck and stretched her hand out. Right before their eyes it grew into a short gold staff with a large eagle on top. "I nearly slipped off the roof, and I grabbed onto this to steady myself. It transformed into a necklace in my hand and I put it on without really thinking. Ever since then, little things have started happening whenever I want them to."

"I like you can charmspeak," Jason guessed.

"Not quite," Annabeth said. "Let me try to explain it a little better. Right before I jumped off the roof and onto the eagle, my stomach grumbled. Then, three eggs appeared right by me, as if they had been there all along. After that, I wished that the eagle would take us to Alaska and it did. I wished that Iris would be hospitable to us despite her history with your father, too."

"So… you're wishing things into reality?" Jason asked. "Why don't you just wish we would appear at the Roman camp?"

"Don't you think I've tried that?" Annabeth snapped. "Children of Athena have power of the mind, but beyond that, we aren't given any sort of special skill. I think that the pendant just amplifies whatever talent the holder already has. For example, wishes are just another part of my mind. Therefore, my ability to wish escalated into this."

Jason thought for a moment. "And if I were holding the pendant…" he reached out and pulled the necklace from her hand. For a moment, nothing happened. Just when Jason was about to hand the pendant back to Annabeth he felt something change. The air around them began to charge with electricity and random objects around the room started to float for no apparent reason.

Annabeth snatched the necklace from Jason. "We wouldn't want a lightning bolt to blow up the house, would we?" she said. Her voice sounded shaky as if Jason had truly frightened her.

"No, we wouldn't," he said gravely, more to himself than to Annabeth.

The two of them paused as the sound of feet pounding against the floor grew closer. The next moment, Piper, Iris and Sean burst through a door; all three panting.

"What happened?" Piper asked.

Jason and Annabeth just stared at them. "What do you mean?" said Jason.

The three of them stared and Jason began to notice how things had changed. Everything around the room was either on its side or upside-down, as if they had been lifted and then dropped hard. Annabeth touched a lamp which had fallen over and it shocked her.

"Ouch," she said, looking at Jason. She opened her hand and everyone gazed at the pendant.

"Ah," Iris said, as if she understood what had just happened. "I see you bare the gift of Hera."


	15. Chapter 15

"Gift!" Annabeth scoffed for the about the millionth time. She was pacing the room where the three of them had chosen to bunk down for the night. At the reassurance of Piper that a deal had been struck with Iris, Annabeth agreed that spending the night was the right thing to do. "Hera would never! She hates me, I hate her. We have mutual hatred! Agh!"

Piper laughed. "Is it really so hard to believe that Hera would help us? We're traveling with Jason, her ward, on a mission to find Percy, who is missing because of her. Maybe she warmed up to you after you designed a statue of her in Olympus."

"I sabotaged the statue," Annabeth admitted.

"What did you do?" Jason asked, sounding full of both admiration and disbelief.

Annabeth smiled. "I just made her nose a little… different, but that's beside the point. The point is that _this_," she shook the necklace which had remained tightly clasped in her fist ever since learning its origin, "is from Hera! Why is it from Hera?"

Piper looked at Jason—it didn't matter that the lights were off; the sun was still shining rather brightly through the glass walls. She could easily see the surprise on his face.

"Jason, what is it?" she asked him.

"I remembered why the necklace was familiar. A while back I went on a quest to find it for Juno. It had been missing for centuries and I found it. I think she might have sent me on that quest because she knew it would be important soon."

"You think she planted it right in our path?" Annabeth asked. "But that makes no sense! Like I said, Hera hates me."

"What if Hera didn't expect you to keep it to yourself when you found it? Maybe she intended for it to go to someone else," Piper said.

Annabeth's eyes bounced from Jason to the necklace like they were on springs, but she shook her head. Instead of acknowledging that perhaps the pendant was for Jason, Annabeth stuffed it into her pocket and yawned.

"You know what?" Annabeth asked. "I _am_ feeling sort of sleepy. It was a good idea to wait."

With that, Annabeth rolled over so that she was facing neither Piper nor Jason. They all knew that Annabeth wasn't really trying to fall asleep; she was avoiding the possibility of needing to hand the pendant over to Jason. It was selfish, but all of a sudden Piper felt a rush of sympathy for the girl. The necklace was something that could bring her closer to the boy she loved. If Piper had been in that position, she wouldn't have given up the pendant either. Without warning, Piper felt a little embarrassed by her proximity to Jason.

"Um, yeah," Piper said awkwardly, "Annabeth's right. We should get some rest."

"Sure," Jason said, sounding equally uncomfortable.

Piper sighed and rested her head on the pillow that Iris had provided. What was wrong with her? Why couldn't she be smoother with Jason? On an impulse, she reached out and grabbed his hand. To her surprise, he didn't pull away. In fact, he squeezed it once and then adjusted his position so that they could fall asleep hand in hand.

Something bubbled up in Piper's chest and she wanted to scream for joy. Instead, she just smiled silently and drifted off into unconsciousness.

The next moment she was standing before an indescribably beautiful woman in a traditional Greek gown. Piper knew immediately that she was dreaming, because the woman that stood before her was a goddess. And also her mother.

"Hello, my dear," Aphrodite said. "And well done, I'll add."

Piper blushed. Knowing her mother, she probably wasn't commenting on her quest.

"It's good to see you, mom," Piper said.

Her mother laughed and it sounded like wind-chimes or something lovely like that. "You're so much like your father. So embarrassed by romance. It's really nothing to be ashamed of. But that isn't why I summoned you."

Piper felt her heart sink. Of course Aphrodite wouldn't just have dropped in to say she loved her. There always needed to be a solid reason for a parent to visit his or her child in the godly world.

"I came to remind you of something you might have forgotten," Aphrodite said. She waved her hand and a few very familiar words shimmered magically in the air. "'Beware dove's daughter of the path you desire'."

"Mom, I know—" Piper began, but Aphrodite cut her off and continued to quote the prophecy.

"'For more than you asked for, you may find you acquire.' Now, I'm not one to discourage love, but you must know what I'm saying."

"Why don't you explain it to me?" Piper said stubbornly.

Aphrodite studied Piper for a moment. "Your fate and the fate of the son of Jupiter do not need to be entwined. You have been given a choice. Choose life," her mother told her. "If not for me and if not for yourself, then do it for you father."

"Do what?" asked Piper. She felt a fire burning in her chest and her eyes began to tear up. How do you pull yourself out of dreams?

"Don't fall in love with that boy!" Aphrodite said sternly.

Piper began pinching herself, but her mind remained inflexibly still. She was stuck in a dream. "Let me go, mother," Piper demanded.

"First, promise me that you won't fall in love with Jason Grace."

"Just a couple months ago you were telling me to do exactly the opposite!" Piper said frustrated. Her arm was getting bruised, but she just pinched harder. "What is it with you gods?"

"I hadn't realized what Hera had planned for him. I won't let you share his fate!"

"You can't control that. Blame your own nature, because it's that very nature which gave me the choice to love whoever I wish—"

"Don't." Aphrodite shook her head, but it wasn't in argument. It was denial.

"– and I choose Jason."

The image of Piper's mother shimmered and then left entirely. Piper opened her eyes and found that she was in Iris' cabin again. Piper began to laugh quietly.

"What are you laughing about?" Annabeth's voice came from somewhere to her left. It appeared that contrary to what Piper had originally thought, she was not the only one awake.

Piper twisted to face Annabeth – at some point in the night, Jason and Piper had released hands, so this wasn't difficult. "I won," Piper told her.

Annabeth smiled. "What are you talking about? What did you win?"

"Nothing important. Just an argument with my mom."

"At least she's speaking to you," Annabeth said morosely. "I haven't heard from my mother since Percy disappeared. Greif is one of the best ways to find wisdom."

"That seems a little cold," Piper said, though something told her that if Jason disappeared, Aphrodite wouldn't be there to comfort her.

"Yeah, well, I don't think I've exactly done my mother proud as of late. Everything I do is rash. I guess I turned out to be an impulsive mourner."

Piper felt all of the love she had for Annabeth swell up inside her. It felt like they hadn't been on very good terms ever since the quest had begun.

"What time is it?" Piper asked her. It was really difficult to discern time from light in the land of the midnight sun.

Annabeth glanced at her watch, "Almost 7 o'clock."

Piper sat a moment and considered their flight on the eagle yesterday. "If we left soon, I bet we could find Percy by tonight."

Annabeth shot up from her sleeping area immediately. "You're right. We should have left hours ago. Wake up Jason; I'm going to call the bird."

"Annabeth, wait," Piper said.

"Why? I want to leave now."

"Yeah, I know. But we need to talk to Sean first."

Annabeth looked skeptically at Piper. "What was the deal you struck with Iris?"

"Well, you know how Chiron said that Sean was another son of Poseidon?" Piper asked.

Annabeth nodded.

"That wasn't completely true."

Annabeth gasped. "He isn't a son of Hades is he?"

"No, he isn't. In fact, he is a son of Poseidon in a way. Just not by that name. I promised that we would take Sean to the Roman camp with us so that he could train."

"He's a Roman?" Annabeth said in mild surprise.

"Yes. But that's only half of the deal. Zeus, or I guess Jupiter, stripped Sean of his powers, remember? Iris thought that was unavoidable. She just wanted to send Sean to the Roman camp so he could learn to fight. But last night, she found hope for him."

Annabeth's head tilted as she worked out just what Piper was saying. Then, slowly, she pulled the necklace from her pocket.

"You bargained with this, didn't you?" Annabeth asked.

"Iris is convinced that if you give Sean the necklace, his powers over the sea will return. After she saw you holding that last night, she refused to tell me anything until I promised that you would give it to Sean. It was the only way. I'm sorry, Annabeth."

Annabeth smiled. "You were right last night; this wasn't meant for me. It was always intended for someone else, but not Jason. I think Hera saw this coming all along. She wants another kid of the Big Three in play."

"But that necklace is only meant to extend powers farther than they are naturally. Sean has no powers. It won't do anything for him, will it?"

"Maybe," Annabeth said. "But he isn't naturally powerless, is he? He was born with the ocean in his blood. If I've learned one thing over the years, it's that you can't keep a boy like that at bay for long."

Piper laughed. "Go call your giant eagle. I really think you need to give that thing a name."

"Yeah? And what do you think I should name it?"

Piper thought about her dream. "Victory."

Annabeth exploded in a fit of chuckles. "That is the absolute worst pet name I've ever heard."

"How about Victor?"

"I think that's even worse. You're not very experienced with animals, are you?"

Piper thought back to all the pets her father had given to her when she was young. Even at that age, she could recognize that most little girls didn't get lives ponies for their sixth birthday. She gave each of them awful names in protest to her own privilege.

"Whatever," Annabeth said before Piper could explain. "I don't care what it's called as long as it can take us to the Roman camp. Now excuse me while I call my pet eagle, Victor." She raced from the room, blonde curls bouncing as she went.

Jason moaned, half asleep. "She seems happy," he mumbled.

Piper turned and looked at him, absolutely pleased with herself. "What do you expect? She's in love."


	16. Chapter 16

An hour later, Piper found herself seated on a giant eagle between Sean and Jason seemingly miles away from the ground.

"Okay, Piper, we've carried out our side of the bargain," Annabeth said, gesturing to the pendant that now hung from Sean's neck. "Where exactly are we headed?"

"I'm not sure!" Piper shouted over the rushing wind. For a moment, Annabeth gave Piper the most impressive _are-you-an-idiot?_ look that Piper had ever seen. "Let me explain first, geez. Iris said that in order be sure we wouldn't betray her right when we learned Percy's location, she would create rainbows that would lead us to our destination."

"We're following rainbows?" Annabeth asked.

The look on the faces of the other three demigods was priceless. Piper couldn't hold back a short chuckle. "Yep."

"Will there be a pot of gold at the end?" Jason asked.

"Unless Percy is sitting on one, I doubt it," Piper answered.

"No, this makes sense," Annabeth reasoned. "I bet that's where the leprechaun myth came from. That means Iris is reliable. Look for a rainbow."

The three studied the sky for a moment. Sean was the first to spot it.

"There," he pointed south, which added up because they knew Percy could probably be found in San Francisco.

"Whoa, double rainbow all the way," Jason said.

Piper elbowed him in the gut. "Never again."

"Follow that rainbow!" Annabeth addressed her bird, paying no attention to Piper and Jason.

Victor the eagle shifted in the sky so his beak faced the lovely colors. For a while the four of them kept up a light conversation and they seemed to be in good spirits. They had packed food from Iris' cabin and the rainbow shone brightly no matter what sort of weather came. In what seemed like no time they were passing over a remote road.

"I see they got their car repaired quickly," Jason said, which confused Piper until she looked down and saw the object of his statement: a car that seemed to be made of smoke.

"What are the gray sisters doing here?" Annabeth wondered aloud.

"Who are the gray sisters?" Sean asked.

"They're bad news. A trio of old women who cart New York demigods around. They shouldn't have been so far west when the plane crashed earlier. The only reason they would be out here is if a lot of demigods in New York have shown interest in traveling here," Annabeth explained.

"Why are demigods going so far from New York?" Sean questioned.

"How should I know? Maybe if I was wearing that," Annabeth looked longingly at the necklace on Sean's neck, "I could think of an answer."

Sean clasped the pendant in his hands, and his face looked deeply thoughtful, as if he was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

"Don't worry about it," Piper told him. "Why should we care about what those nasty old women do in their spare time?"

The other three heroes nodded. None of them had any desire to add an extra problem to their already long list.

A couple of hours later Jason looked up. "Is it my imagination, or is that rainbow getting closer?" he asked. Annabeth checked the sky and nearly jumped right off the eagle in surprise.

"We can't be near Frisco already," she mumbled.

"So?" Piper asked. "That just means Percy isn't _in_ San Francisco. Maybe he's out looking for you."

Annabeth smiled at Piper. "Maybe," she said, in an almost satisfied tone. "Jason, how much do you remember of Roman camp?"

"Why?" he asked.

Annabeth paused a moment and Piper thought she knew the answer. "You want to know how much Percy will remember?" she guessed. Annabeth nodded.

"Oh," Jason said. He made a strange face which Piper didn't fully understand. It looked something like guilt. "I could probably put at least a first name to any face I saw there at this point. I don't remember many of the adventures I've heard about, but they'll come with time. I'll bet anything Percy knows how he feels about you."

A chill ran down Piper's spine. Did Jason look so guilty because he remembered a girl at camp? That couldn't have been the answer. She tried to shove the idea from her mind, but it nagged so much that she just couldn't hold it back.

"Can you think of anyone you were particularly close to?" The question burst out of Piper involuntarily. "Like a best friend… or a girlfriend?"

Jason swallowed. "Oh, I don't think I had anyone that special." He paused. "I had a best friend, I think. But I don't have many memories of them."

Piper was certain that Jason had chosen the word "them" in order to avoid the word "her," but she didn't have the guts to ask any further. Instead, she just stopped speaking all together.

"Almost there!" Annabeth called. The rainbow looked strange up close. It appeared to have shape, rather than just reflected light. It seemed as if she could touch it if only she were a hundred feet nearer.

"Where are we?" Sean looked around.

"I… I think we're just outside of San Francisco. This looks like Oakland. And that," Annabeth's eyes shifted to a far bridge, "must be the Bay Bridge. It leads to Treasure Island and then to Frisco."

"Treasure Island?" Jason laughed. "So there was treasure at the end of the rainbow."

The other three ignored him, studying their surroundings. It looked like they were close to some sort of street mall, with all kinds of shops. It reminded Piper of an Indian bazaar.

"Okay," Piper said, "I guess this is what daughters of Aphrodite do best."

"What?" asked Jason.

"Shopping, of course," she smiled. With that, Piper slid from her perch on Victor, who seemed to be attracting attention, and walked into the crowd. "Keep your eyes peeled for a boy who looks like Sean."

Annabeth sniffed. "Not exactly," but she, too slid from her seat and followed Piper into the throngs of people.

Soon, Piper was completely lost. She looked around, but didn't see a single familiar face. She saw a large middle-eastern woman blabbing on about how she couldn't find her favorite perfume shop, and a short man in the midst of purchasing a shiny black brief case. Everyone's conversations mixed together and all she heard was a jumble of words and noises:

"Beautiful day—"

"How much—"

"Where can I find the shoe shop?"

"Percy, if they aren't here now I don't think they're coming.

That last one caught Piper's attention. She tried to find the source of the sound and discovered a girl with short blonde hair and a tall boy. If only she could see his face, she would know for sure…

The boy nodded. "I thought she would come if I asked," he said sadly.

"Maybe she wasn't as good of a friend as you thought," said Blondie.

"No, that isn't it. She could be in trouble. Maybe she's asleep."

That was all the confirmation Piper needed. They were talking about Annabeth, she was sure. She watched the boy for a moment longer. He groaned in frustration and slammed his fist onto a wooden table, which Piper assumed would hurt his hand. That was, until his fist exploded into water and reformed, without a trace of damage.

"Chill, Percy," Blondie told him.

Piper rushed to the pair, but was suddenly struck with a tied tongue. Was it awkward to approach someone you had been heroically trying to rescue when he appeared to be in perfectly good shape?

As if on cue, trouble came in the form of a black suited man which Piper recognized from the disastrous plane ride.

"Run!" Piper shouted to them. The two looked at her for a moment, and then Piper felt herself slip into the world of dreamless sleep.

"You…"she mumbled to the suited man. The last thing she saw before losing consciousness was his laughing face and the collapsing bodies of the blonde haired girl and Percy Jackson.


	17. Chapter 17

Leo downed yet another Coke and tossed the aluminum can into a large pile of empty soda containers which he had created over the past hours. He cracked open another can and looked down at the metal disk from his pet mechanical dragon, Festus. He kept spinning it around on the tip of his pointer finger, hoping it would reveal some sort of secret, but it did nothing. As he gazed at the disk he thought back to his conversation with the Hecate group.

Sue-Ellen of the Hecate cabin had politely informed Leo that all of her brothers and sisters were young children of a _minor_ goddess. That meant that unless the Roman camp had a lot—as in hundreds—of Hecate children, or whatever the Roman equivalent was, there would be no way to make such a delicate item work properly again. At that point, Leo grew angry and started yelling so she shoved him out the door. All in all, it was one of Leo's more successful conversations with a girl.

"No luck?" Nico's voice came from behind. Leo spun around to face him. Nico was probably the only camper that was comfortable just walking into the forges even though he wasn't a son of Hephaestus.

"Nope," Leo answered. "The Hecate kids are saying it's impossible to repair this thing with magic, and I already know it's impossible to repair it without magic." Leo threw the disk into the pile of pop cans. It was just as useless as any old scrap of metal if he couldn't make it work right.

"Why don't you just use good old mechanic skills to get the _Argo II_ off the ground?" Nico asked. "Like an airplane or a helicopter."

Leo chuckled in an _I-feel-hopeless_ sort of way, not a _you're-so-funny_ sort of way. "Have you ever learned how they get airplanes off the ground?"

Nico shook his head, confirming Leo's suspicions.

"I won't go into detail," Leo said, "but in order to make a plane fly, you need momentum which, when the plane is shaped properly, will lift it into the sky. It's more complicated than that, but you get the point. What I'm saying is that this ship wasn't designed to get into the sky like an airplane. If it was, I would have just built an airplane. I think it's supposed to be a boat. I had dreams about this design from before I even knew I was a demigod. And in none of those dreams did this ship have propellers or cockpits."

Nico sighed. "I figured you'd say that. You're too smart not to have considered options like propellers, but it was worth a shot. Anyway, Percy doesn't fly. The only way he'll go into the air is with a Pegasus."

"_What?_" Leo asked, in shock. "Then why in Hades am I building a flying boat for this guy!"

"Hey, relax, Leo," Nico said, surprised by Leo's sudden outburst, but this was too much.

"Why did Hera make it my destiny to build a flying boat for a boy who doesn't fly? Is this just an irrational fear sort of thing? Because if it is, and I successfully get this boat in the air, I am throwing Percy Jackson onto it and steering the ship myself! Doesn't fly…"

"Leo, it isn't like that. It's just an old rivalry that Percy had with Zeus," Nico explained.

"That changes nothing!"

"How about this, then: Jason will always be on this boat as long as Percy is. Zeus would never set a lightning bolt on a ship that his son is riding. Besides, like it or not, Zeus still sort of owes Percy for saving his butt in the Titan War. Zeus would never admit it, but if any harm ever came to Percy by Zeus' hands, Olympus would be in uproar."

Leo was about to say something back, but he forgot it immediately when the air shimmered behind Nico's head and distracted him. There wasn't any image, but Leo knew it was an Iris message.

"Don't speak, just listen. We found Percy's location," Annabeth's voice said quickly. "We think he was taken before we could get to him. Jason is guessing that the man who crashed our plane got to Percy before we could. We are heading into San Francisco now, and we're hoping that Jason will be able to remember his way into the Roman camp from there. We're going to try to rally Roman troops and find this enemy. I'm sending a bird to you, don't shoot it. It can only carry a few of you, but in case we can't find the Roman camp, tell the bird bring you to the rainbow. He will take you to Percy. When you reach Percy we think he will be unconscious. You must find the god in black and attack him, but never reveal yourself. Attack from behind. If you defeat him we will all be saved."

The air shimmered again and Leo knew Annabeth was done talking. Leo had listened to her intently, but he couldn't make sense of her words.

"'_Tell the bird to bring you to the rainbow_?'" Nico asked in shock. "Do you think she's on something?"

"We should go find Clarisse before she leaves to get Chris," Leo finally said after a moment of thought. "I think Annabeth just told us what has been happening to the campers and the satyrs." Leo quickly filled Nico in on the crashing plane adventure that Jason had told him about.

"A god is making people fall asleep. That must mean Morpheus." Leo could see Nico's anxiety.

"Annabeth said it wasn't Morpheus, though. She said that Morpheus doesn't have any demigod children." Suddenly, Leo's chest grew cold as he came to a new realization: "But someone else does."

"Yeah, Leo, a lot of things have children," Nico said through a grin, obviously not catching on.

"No, Nico, listen. Morpheus doesn't have any demigod children, but his father does," Leo said, pulling on some Ancient Greek knowledge he had learned a while back.

That melted the smile right off Nico's face. "Hypnos?"

Leo nodded. "You don't think Clovis knows anything about his dad?"

"No," Nico said, "Clovis and his siblings are oblivious. But Hypnos' family isn't good to mess with. His twin Thanatos is Death and his mother Nyx is Night. Annabeth wants us to attack him?"

Leo shuddered at the thought, but knew what needed to be done. "Get ready to go," he told Nico. "I'll go get Clarisse and some others. Then we're going to find Hypnos and I'm going to kick his butt."

Nico smiled and turned away. He ran out of the forge without another word. When Leo heard the last of Nico's footsteps fade, Leo took a final glance at the disk and let the idea that it might one day be useful die. There had to be another way, he just didn't know what it could be. Leo shifted his body so that he was no longer facing the disk. It was over.

On the bright side, when he turned to the door he found that he now faced a much more welcome sight.

"Oops," Daisy said when Leo nearly walked into her, "sorry. I didn't mean to surprise you. I just came in looking for you and Nico, and, um…"

"You heard our conversation?" Leo guessed.

"I didn't mean to. But Leo, I want to go with you guys," she said.

Leo nodded. He had planned on taking Nico, Clarisse, Zach, and Katie, but now that he thought about it, there was no way he wanted to leave Daisy behind. "I'll talk to Clarisse."

Daisy smiled. "So you're waiting for a bird?" she said, taking a step to the door.

They walked together all the way to the Ares cabin. Leo knew it was silly to wish that the walk could have been longer, considering the circumstances, but a part of him was selfish and wished it just the same.

"Clarisse?" Leo knocked on the door of the cabin, and pushed it open when no one answered.

"Get out!" Clarisse screamed at him. Leo ducked just in time for the knife she threw to fly over his head and burry itself in the door.

"Relax," Leo said. He attempted to pull the knife out for a moment, but gave up after a couple seconds of helpless tugging. "I just came here to…" he paused for a second to note her bloodshot eyes, but decided not to comment for everyone's sakes, "to tell you that Annabeth just contacted us. We have a plan and we think it's going to lead us straight to Chris."

Clarisse shot up from the chair where she sat immediately. "I'll go tell Katie and Zach. We were just about to leave."

"Wait," Leo said. "Annabeth said we could only bring a few people. If you, Nico, Daisy, and—"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Clarisse said. "Just because your little girlfriend wants to go doesn't mean she can fight. How come she gets to come?"

"Well, I wouldn't say she's my girlfriend—"

"Clarisse!" Daisy said in outrage. She had always seemed pretty nice, but at the moment, her face mean. "I have supported you in all the crap you pull, and you _will_ support me in this."

"I'm not putting my boyfriend's life on the line because you're looking for an adventure!"

"Do you think I'm that shallow?" Daisy took a step toward Clarisse and Leo was afraid she might hit her, but instead, she spoke in a calm, dangerous voice. "I can fight. If you don't want me to go, you can find Chris without us."

"What?" Leo asked, suddenly panicking.

"What?" Clarisse repeated. That was when Leo understood. Daisy had found Clarisse's weakness. Maybe she was stubborn, but Clarisse valued Chris' life over her own pride. If she chose to take her own path she would never find Chris in time.

"Yeah," Leo said, much too late.

Clarisse stared at Daisy for a moment, with pure hatred in her eyes. "Okay," she finally agreed.

"Fine," said Daisy. "Be ready to leave whenever. No one knows exactly when our ride will be here."

Clarisse refused to acknowledge Daisy, which was better than more knives. Daisy and Leo decided that it would be best to inform Travis, Connor, Katie, and Zach that they would soon be left in charge of camp defense. Strangely enough, all of them seemed to be reluctant to go with the plan, as if they actually agreed with Clarisse.

Finally, after everyone had been notified—including Chiron—Daisy and Leo searched for Nico and found him in the woods.

"I was just talking to some of the nymphs," he explained. The nymphs had been in a habit of shooting things they considered "scary" as of late and Nico was afraid that they would try to kill the bird they were expecting. "They don't feel comfortable in the woods anymore after they found out what happened to the satyrs."

About an hour passed of weapon preparation, in which Nico, Daisy, and Leo walked around the camp finding anything that might be useful in sneaking up on a god. Nico kept glancing at Daisy which made Leo so uncomfortable that he asked Daisy to grab some snacks just to get her away.

"If we survive, I'm going to ask her out," Nico and Leo both blurted the minute she was out of earshot, as if they had been in a race to say the words all day.

"Um," Leo mumbled, "never mind."

From that moment on, the two just acted as if nothing had happened, but everything seemed awkward.

A while later, when Daisy left to go to the bathroom, Leo thought about confronting Nico. He opened his mouth to say something but was interrupted by a giant cry and several screams.

"LIVER!"

"DON'T SHOOT!" Clarisse called over a crowd of panicking demigods. "It was given permission to enter our boundaries by Annabeth, leave it be!"

"Did our ride just call for liver?" Nico asked.

Leo shrugged and ran to the commotion. He was greeted by the sight of a large, menacing eagle. Daisy and Clarisse both appeared to be approaching it slowly.

"It's the Caucasian Eagle, be careful," said a boy who looked like Annabeth.

"Your sister sent it. He isn't dangerous," Daisy muttered. She raised an arm to the animal's bill and he leaned into her palm; a friendly gesture.

"If only we knew where Annabeth was at…" Leo said.

"Where Annabeth _is_. You never end a sentence with a preposition," the boy corrected.

"You want to know where you can shove your grammar _up_?" Leo asked.

"He's a kid of Athena, he can't help himself," Nico said.

On that lovely note, Daisy, Clarisse, Nico, and Leo piled onto Annabeth's large pet and took off into the sunset like any quartet of heroes would. Unfortunately, none of them felt very up to being heroes at the moment.


	18. Chapter 18

The bird was seriously fast. The minute everyone had settled into his or her spots, Clarisse had whispered something in the eagle's ear and it burst into hyper speed, making it impossible to carry on a conversation. This was the sort of situation that Leo's mind started to think about things he didn't want to think of, like ambushing an immortal.

After all, the point of being immortal was that you couldn't be killed. How could they defeat a god like that? One look at Nico's face and Leo knew he was thinking about the same things. Nico noticed that Leo and composed himself so that he was wearing his typical bold face.

Leo turned away from Nico and looked forward instead. Daisy was studying the skies, probably trying to keep her mind off the future. In front of Daisy, Clarisse's back seemed to be convulsing and after a moment Leo realized she was sobbing. The whistling wind could cover the sound sufficiently, but that didn't change the way her body shivered. Daisy moved her hand to Clarisse's back and she didn't try to shove it off, which was better than Leo could've hoped for.

At their speed of travel, the rainbow came into view within the hour. _There's our friend Percy,_ Leo thought. The bird slowed down and the noise wasn't so very loud. Clarisse immediately sat up straight and raised her hands to her face, wiping her eyes. Now seemed like as good a time as any to discuss strategy, but Nico spoke up first.

"What did you say to the eagle to make it move so fast?" he asked Clarisse.

Clarisse looked back with a proud scowl. "First, I told it to take us to Percy. Then I gave it the blessing of Ares. I can give it to any creature that I ride into battle. It's the same blessing that Alexander the Great's horse had."

The mention of imminent battle made Leo sweat, but he steeled his nerves. "We need to talk about this," he said, knowing they would all know what he was referring to.

"We ambush him!" Clarisse said.

"Really, Clarisse?" Nico asked sarcastically.

"What more can we talk about? We sneak up when the time is right and then we attack. We'll just have to wing the rest," explained Clarisse.

"I agree," Daisy said.

"In that case I change my mind," Clarisse grunted coldly.

"No, think about it. When have demigod plans ever really worked out?" Daisy asked. "They never do. So, why waste our time strategizing when Annabeth already told us to sneak up on him? Annabeth is the daughter of the goddess of wisdom and battle strategy. Who better to trust than her?"

Of course Nico and Leo were ready to back up Daisy, and the only problem Clarisse had with the plan was her, so it was quickly decided that there was nothing more to discuss on the matter. Meanwhile, the eagle continued to lose altitude as they grew nearer to the rainbow.

"Where are we," asked Leo after a moment of silence.

"It looks a bit like Havre, Montana," answered Clarisse.

"How do you know?" asked Leo, not meaning to sound rude. He was just genuinely curious.

"Because I did some traveling back in the Titan War and have some experience in Montana. Anymore questions, punk?" she snapped.

"Nope, you pretty much covered everything," he said.

"What is Percy Jackson doing in Montana?" asked Daisy.

"A better question is what are they doing in Montana?" Clarisse mumbled. Leo looked down and saw a strange vehicle he didn't recognize. It was a large gray bus that seemed to be made of smoke.

"The Gray Sisters? Don't they normally drive a taxi?" asked Daisy.

"I'm assuming a car made of smoke isn't horribly difficult to turn into a bus. But they should be in New York."

"Look where they're headed," pointed out Nico. Now that Leo looked, he could tell they were headed directly toward the rainbow.

Daisy gasped. "The people on that bus…" she began. "You don't think…?"

"I bet they're asleep," confirmed Clarisse. Clarisse bent forward and whispered something new into the eagle's ear. Nico didn't need to ask what she told it this time, because as soon as Clarisse sat back up, the eagle swooped high into the clouds and followed the bus. Unfortunately, the sun was somewhat bright above the clouds. Leo and Nico both had darker skin, but Clarisse and Daisy were sunburned in minutes.

"I think we're probably getting close, now," said Daisy. "Why don't we go back down and check?"

Clarisse didn't protest. She nudged the bird's head and he moved back beneath the clouds. Daisy breathed a sigh of relief, which was cut short by the sight beneath them.

The bus had stopped at a large tomb. Beside it sat a man dressed in black, which Leo assumed what Hypnos. The god was not the most disturbing part of the scene beneath them, though. The worst part was all of the demigod and satyr bodies that littered the ground.

"No," Clarisse whispered when a she caught sight of a boy whose prosthetic arm glistened in the noon sunlight. "NO!"

"Shh!" Nico said, looking at Hypnos nervously. "He isn't dead, he's just asleep." Clarisse breathed in sharp gasps. She was having a panic attack.

"Clarisse, calm down," Daisy said in a cool voice. "The most important thing right now is to keep a low profile. If we aren't completely silent then we can't sneak up on Hypnos and we won't be able to save Chris." Clarisse nodded and her breathing slowed.

"You're right," she said after a while. "I hate it, but you're right. I want to kill him."

Clarisse nudged the eagle and it flew high into the sky; so far that it probably looked like a normal sized bird from the ground. It circled the god and the tomb below while the heroes considered what they were about to do.

"I think we should wait and see if the others come, first," said Leo.

"Why?" asked Clarisse. "There's nothing they can do that we can't."

"I don't know about that," said Daisy. "Annabeth has that invisibility hat. She could probably sneak up better than anyone."

There was a moment's silence as the others considered this. Finally, Clarisse sighed.

"Ten minutes," she informed Leo, who nodded. "After that, I'm going in with or without you."

"We should land somewhere out of their sight, just to check out the… situation." Daisy stumbled over that last word. Leo thought that hundreds of sleeping demigods and mythical creatures was a little bit more than a "situation." The understatement seemed almost darkly humorous to him, and his chuckle earned him a glare from Clarisse.

"You're oddly quiet about this, Nico," noted Daisy. He sighed.

"Hypnos' family has served my father for a very long time. His twin Thanatos is Hades' right-hand-man. I don't understand what caused both Hypnos and Morpheus to turn, but I'm afraid it won't be long until Thanatos does the same," he explained.

Leo immediately saw Nico's problem. "Didn't you say that Thanatos was the god of Death?" Nico nodded grimly. "The Great Prophecy…"

"It said that the Doors of Death would open," Nico finished Leo's thought. "I think their whole family is serving someone."

"Who?" asked Daisy.

"Gaea," Nico and Leo answered simultaneously.

"I guess we know what's in the tomb, then." Clarisse pointed to the stone structure, which was now beginning to glow.

"No way," Leo mumbled, putting together the puzzle pieces. "The more demigods and magical creatures Hypnos steals the energy from, the more energy Gaea receives. He's stealing our power to wake the Earth goddess."

Leo let his words sink it. Everything made sense now. Just by looking at the others' reactions, he could tell he'd come to the right conclusion. Clarisse looked at her watch.

"How much time is left?" asked Nico.

"Enough," she said. "We're going down."

"It hasn't been ten minutes?" Daisy wondered.

"No, but judging by that tomb, we don't have ten minutes to spare." Leo looked down and saw that she was right. It was now shining bright gold.

"Just a few more minutes," Daisy pleaded. "They can't be far…" Daisy trailed off, distracted by something on the ground. "Get closer," she said, squinting to see something that no one else could see.

"What is it?" Leo inquired.

The eagle swooped a bit lower and Daisy gasped. "That's Piper! Hit the ground!" The bird seemed to understand, because in a moment, Daisy was squatting on the Montana dirt, feeling Piper's pulse. "She's okay," she sighed.

"Can you wake her up?" Nico asked.

"Not by shaking her," Daisy murmured more to herself than anyone else. "Maybe…" instead of voicing her thoughts, she simply uncapped her nectar and poured a bit onto Piper's forehead and in her mouth. Piper stirred in her slumber, but did not wake.

Clarisse grunted and pulled out a dagger. She walked toward Hypnos, whose back was turned and didn't seem to notice the four conscious demigods.

"Clarisse, no!" Daisy cried. Luckily, Hypnos either didn't hear or was too concentrated on kidnapping heroes to care. Clarisse continued to walk forward angrily. Leo had to admit, the girl was brave. Or dumb.

Regardless, Leo couldn't let her continue. Approaching an immortal with a dagger was suicide at best. He sprinted to catch up with her. That was his first mistake.

As Leo tried to tackle her she spun around and slammed the butt of her dagger into his head. Leo's vision went fuzzy. She grasped him around his back and held his ear close to her mouth so he could hear her speak.

"Sorry, Leo," Clarisse apologized very un-apologetically. "It's nothing personal. I just want Chris back."

Leo tried to insult her, but what came out of his mouth sounded more like, "ungda…"

"Leo!" Daisy called from somewhere behind, but Leo kept his eyes glued on Clarisse. She approached Hypnos slowly. There was still time to stop her. Leo reached out his hands. His brain felt like Jell-O. He wasn't sure how that would affect his ability to conjure fire, but he had to try something.

He allowed power to flow from his fingertips. A circle of flame burst around Clarisse, encaging her. The flames flickered for a second, and then disappeared. Clarisse never even had to stop walking.

Nico's hands came out of nowhere, supporting Leo, helping him to his feet. "We can't stop her," he mumbled in Leo's ear, "but we can fight with her. We should attack now."

Daisy opened Leo's mouth and tipped her flask of nectar onto his tongue. The second it reached his lips his vision cleared.

"I can't," he said pathetically.

"You have to," Nico informed him. "We all do. Let's go."

Leo looked at the faces of his friends. If it hadn't been for them, he would have run away. But these two depended on him. He needed to help for their sakes. Leo shook his head—resulting in a throbbing headache—and stood up straight in order to bear his weight without Nico's help. He drew his hammer from his handy tool belt. "Let's go," he told his friends.

Together they ran to Clarisse. Leo stumbled every few feet, but Daisy and Nico caught him. They reached her just as she raised her dagger, about to strike. At the last moment, Clarisse turned around on Daisy, Leo, and Nico.

"Clarisse?" Daisy asked, confused. That's when Leo noticed the problem: Clarisse's eyes were closed.

"She's asleep!" Nico shouted. Leo could honestly say he hadn't been so disturbed by a sleeping person since his mother's death. With her eyes still closed, Clarisse threw her dagger, missing Nico's head by an inch. Leo knew Clarisse had a magic spear, which she could draw out of thin air. It was only a matter of time before she summoned it, and no one could beat Clarisse when she held that deadly device.

As if reading Leo's mind, Clarisse held her arm out, reaching for something only she could see.

"The spear!" Leo told the others.

A plant grew rapidly from the ground and wrapped itself around Clarisse's feet. "These won't hold her for long," Daisy said. She appeared to be concentrating deeply to make just these plants grow, but they sufficiently held Clarisse at bay.

"Let me go," Clarisse said. The voice was hers but Leo knew Clarisse wasn't the one speaking.

"Never," Leo snarled. With that Clarisse's body fell to the ground limply.

"O-o-o-kay?" Nico said, clearly confused by the quick surrender. That was before Hypnos himself turned around and faced them. On the bright side, the tomb seemed to lose a bit of its glow when the god turned his focus away from it. But it was hard to look at the bright side when the immortal god of sleep was trying to kill you.

"Hypos," Daisy addressed the god, "I know your kids." She seemed to be scrambling for time at this point, but Jason had told Leo that Hypnos was planning to wipe out the demigods in exchange for the lives of his children. Perhaps she was onto something.

"Clovis knows what you're up to," Leo lied easily. "He says he'd rather die than let you kill of his friends and live. Your children will fight you if you go through with this."

"My children don't know what's best. _I_ do," Hypnos said angrily. "You could have fallen asleep like the others, and died easily with them as Gaea wakes. Unfortunately, you three have chosen to drink caffeine. This means I must kill you the hard way." Hypos drew a deadly sword out of thin air. "For that, I am truly sorry."

The god raised his sword high into the air. Leo cringed, anticipating the blow that would mean the end of his short life. The sword never touched him, though. Instead, the tip of a blade protruded straight from the chest of the god's double-breasted Italian suit, and then receded back into his body and out his back. Golden ichor, the blood of the gods, dripped from the wound and Hypnos grimaced in pain.

"Close your eyes!" Daisy screamed. Leo didn't need to be told twice. Through his eyelids, everything turned red as if the sun decided to burn a thousand times brighter.

"Curse you demigods! I will return!" the god shouted. When the inside of Leo's eyelids grew dark again, he knew it was safe to look up. When he opened his eyes, he was greeted by the welcome sight of Annabeth Chase holding a dripping dagger in one hand, and a Yankee's baseball cap in the other.


	19. Chapter 19

Annabeth bent down and wiped her dagger on the grass while Jason, Sean, and two Roman demigods named Gwen and Hazel came out from their hiding places.

"We were just about to attack when Annabeth remembered her hat," said Hazel—a dark haired girl who looked about fourteen.

"Look at all these demigods," Gwen said in wonder.

Jason could tell from the faces of Leo and his two companions that they were all in shock over the events that had just occurred. "First," said Jason, "we're going to wake these people up. Then I'll explain everything."

Jason saw Leo scowl at him and he knew that it might take a while for their friendship to be healed. So much had happened in the short while that they had been separated. It was like they could no longer depend on each other.

"We saw Piper," said the girl next to Leo. "And Chris and Clarisse, too."

"Where's Piper?" Jason asked quickly. So quickly in fact, that Gwen and Hazel exchanged glances.

"Reyna is _so_ not going to be happy about this," Gwen muttered under her breath.

"I just mean—where are they so we can help them?" Jason corrected himself.

"Come with me," the girl said. Jason walked after her while she introduced herself.

"I'm Daisy, daughter of Demeter. I'm a friend of Leo's," she explained. "Here's Clarisse." Daisy pointed down at the daughter of Ares. She was snoring. It was the first time Jason had ever seen her face make a peaceful expression.

"Ugh, don't wake that one up," came a voice from behind.

Leo spun around to face the speaker. There, on the ground, sat a dark haired boy with bright green eyes. He rubbed his head like he had just awoken.

"Percy!" Annabeth shouted. Her face burst into a contagious grin that spread right from one ear to the other. She sat next to him and punched him right in the arm. "That's for leaving, Seaweed Brain!"

"Ouch!" Percy grimaced, though from the stories Jason heard about Percy's invulnerable skin, he had probably just faked pain to humor her.

Annabeth leaned forward and kissed him right on the lips. "And that's for being alive," she said sweetly.

Percy smiled. "Well, I do my best."

"Can you remember everything?" Annabeth asked him. Percy tilted his head from side to side, like he was shaking the memories around inside of his head.

"More that before. When I Iris messaged you before I was struggling to remember everyone's names. I wasn't even sure who you were at first."

The two of them continued to talk excitedly, but Jason felt invasive when he listened, so he turned back to Daisy. "Where's Piper?" he asked her quietly so that Gwen and Hazel wouldn't overhear.

Daisy gestured about twenty meters ahead and Jason saw where she was pointing. Some of the other heroes around them had begun to wake, but Piper lay perfectly still. Jason was thrilled by the idea of being the first sight she would have. They were together again, and everything would be perfect.

"Jason?" called a familiar voice, which distracted him from his current course.

"Reyna?" Jason said back. He searched for the voice and saw her sitting not ten feet away.

Reyna smiled and stood up. Jason walked to her. When she swung her arms around him all of his memories came flooding back. He remembered walking into battle with Reyna at his side. He remembered the night Reyna's brother had died, and how he had comforted her. He remembered the time that Reyna cut her hair short as a disguise the year they were wanted by the police. He remembered the way she sobbed when Calvin betrayed them.

"I know you," he laughed to himself while they embraced. Her hair smelled faintly of nectar, like she bathed in the stuff. She laughed, too. For a moment, everything was perfect. The moment passed when he saw Piper peering at him from her spot on the ground.

Piper looked away quickly, apparently pretending like she didn't care who Jason hugged. But when she turned her face Jason could she tears swimming in her eyes.

Jason broke away from Reyna. "I'll be right back," he told her. Reyna nodded and walked around, helping other demigods and fauns while Jason approached Piper.

"Hey," he said awkwardly. He held out his hand to help her up, but she stood without it.

"Hey," she replied coldly.

"So, um—"

Piper walked away before Jason could say anything else. He knew that he probably should have stopped her, but he felt so guilty he wasn't sure what to say.

"Jason," Leo's dark haired friend addressed him. Jason studied the boy for a second. Something about him gave Jason a funny feeling. He wasn't normal.

"Do I know you?" Jason asked him, knowing the answer would be no.

"Not unless you've died," the boy said.

"As a matter of fact, I have," Jason laughed, remembering a couple months back when Piper had called him out of the Underworld. Thinking about that just made him feel even guiltier.

The boys smiled. "Really? Well, the Underworld is a big place, I can't keep tabs on everyone, even if we _are_ related."

Something clicked in Jason's brain. "Nice to finally meet you, cousin. I've heard a lot about you around camp."

Nico chuckled and reached out his hand for Jason to shake. "Of course you have. Nothing makes better gossip than a kid of Hades. Even after Percy made it clear that I was no longer an outcast last year."

"I don't know, a son of Jupiter gets a lot of publicity."

"Any publicity is good publicity. C'mon," Nico walked forward, "you should hear how much talk our _other_ cousin gets."

Together they went to Percy. With Nico there, all of Jason's fears about not getting along with Percy disappeared. They had lived very similar lives; of course they would be friends. Annabeth, Percy, Jason, Nico, Reyna, Gwen, and Hazel gathered together and basked in the utter happiness of being united. Jason could see Leo and Piper sitting next to each other by a tree, confiding like best friends. Part of Jason wanted to join them, but if he was honest, he was down right afraid. He had betrayed them both.

Reyna reached down and took Jason's hand, but he politely found an excuse to drop it. When Juno had stolen Jason away from all of his friends, she had split him into two and no amount of warriors and battle training could equip him for that. He felt like Humpty Dumpty from that old nursery rhyme: _all the king's horses and all the king's men…_

"What's wrong?" Reyna whispered to him under her breath.

Jason sighed. "Nothing," he mumbled in reply. "I need to leave for a minute, okay?" She studied his face in the dim light of the setting sun.

"Come back soon," she murmured. With that, Jason turned and went to Piper and Leo. He didn't know what to say, but he had to say something. Humpty Dumpty must never have had friends like Jason's, because when he saw them he knew that no matter what happened he loved them. Even if they hated him, he would remain forever devoted to them.

"Can I sit here?" Jason asked, when he was close enough for them to hear.

Piper shrugged. "Why not?"

The three of them sat in awkward silence until Jason couldn't bear it any longer. "Nice to be with you guys again. It reminds me of our quest. It's sort of funny to think about, but even with all the crap that was going on back then, life seemed a whole lot simpler than it is right now."

Piper chuckled. "I wish it could be like that again."

"That?" Leo laughed. "If you're wishing for something different then don't wish for that. Wish to be mortal. Life is better for the mortals."

"No it isn't," Sean said, surprising the three of them. He held out the eagle necklace and dropped it into Jason's lap. "Trust me, I'm one hundred percent mortal and it's not as great as you think."

Leo moved over and created a space for Sean to sit. "I'm guessing it's a long story?" he asked Jason and Piper. They nodded. "I'm not even going to ask."

"That's probably for the best," Sean told him. "I don't think that pendant is going to work for me after all. I'm powerless. I think that I want to go back to Iris' cabin. At least I was happy there."

Piper patted him on the back. "I know what it's like to feel hopeless in a life like ours, but you can't be discouraged. Just because you don't have powers like Percy doesn't mean you can't train to be a demigod. There are plenty of heroes at camp without supernatural abilities."

While Piper told Sean about all the benefits he could receive from spending a summer at camp the ruby eyes of the golden eagle pendant caught Jason's attention. He reached down and picked up the necklace. It turned into the staff with a golden eagle perched on top in his fist. Just like before, the air charged with electricity. Piper's hair stood up on end from static. All of the rocks around them began to float.

Leo jumped to his feet. "No way!"

"What? What's wrong?" Jason cried, afraid he had hurt someone.

"Nothing is wrong!" Leo exclaimed excitedly. "You made the rocks float just by holding that thing?"

"Yeah, but I didn't mean to, it just happens," Jason explained.

"This is _perfect_!" Leo laughed like a madman.

"_What_ is perfect?" Jason asked.

"You can make things float. That eagle can make the _Argo II_ fly!" Leo was smiling.

"But I can't control it. I just touch the thing and stuff flies, I can't steer them. There's no way I can move an entire warship straight to the Doors of Death with this thing."

"What, do you think I built the ship without a steering wheel? Trust me, this will work." Leo kept looking at Jason like he was made of gold.

Jason passed the staff back to Sean and it shrunk into a necklace. "Maybe so, but I don't want everything around me to start flying right now. Will you hold onto it for me?"

Sean thought for a moment and then nodded. "I'll hold onto it for you, but the minute we reach camp, take it back. I don't want to have anything to do with it anymore."

"I'll take it." Leo snatched it out of Sean's hand.

"No!" Piper and Jason shouted at the same time.

Fire burst from Leo's ears in twenty foot jets either direction. Leo dropped it back into Sean's hand immediately.

"Never mind," he told them simply.

The others laughed. Jason knew that nothing was back to normal. Piper was still holding a grudge against Jason, she had just chosen not to show it, but for now, as all of the sleeping demigods and fauns awoke from their slumber, life seemed…good.


	20. Chapter 20

One quick Iris Message to Chiron ensured that the Party Ponies would be riding out to pick up the demigods and return them to their homes. As for the fauns—as Jason had begun to call the satyrs since regaining his Roman memories—they had their own magical methods of travel and would not require the aid of the centaurs.

"I can't do it," Sean said for the third time. This came as no surprise to Jason, who had been hearing Sean change his mind back and forth about going to the Roman camp. "I want to go home to Iris."

Jason patted the poor guy on the back. "No one is asking you to make a decision now. I'll talk to the others and see if maybe some people want to ride the eagle to Alaska. We can drop you off at Iris' place. If you change your mind… well, you're living under the care of the messenger goddess. You can always call us."

Sean grinned sheepishly at the prospect of returning to his home and friend. "I think I must have died around twenty years old. With a father like mine, there's no way I could have lived that long unless I was a pretty good fighter. From what I hear, you could fight well even without your memory, just because your body knows what it's doing. So I figure, my muscles will remember how to yield a sword when the time is right, training or no."

Jason nodded, "I thought you might say that. But doesn't that make you wonder if you might remember some other stuff, too? Like manipulating water?"

"I don't know," Sean replied. "Maybe my powers will return in a life or death situation, but they obviously didn't return in my _last_ life or death situation. If it didn't happen then, they might never come back. I'm okay with that, though. I've gotten a pretty good idea of what the life of a powerful demigod is like lately and I'm not a fan."

"I don't blame you there," Jason laughed. He beckoned Leo and Piper forward and within a few minutes, Jason had convinced them to take the eagle to Alaska with him and Sean.

"I'm coming with you," Reyna stepped in on their conversation, surprising everyone.

"Don't worry about it, we have it covered," Piper informed her coldly.

"No one asked you, Barbie," Reyna replied in an equally mean tone, then directed her next statement to Jason. "I haven't seen you in months. I don't care if I sound possessive, you're my best friend and I'm not letting you out of my sight again."

"Umm…uh," Jason muttered stupidly. It was like his personality had been split in two and was playing tug-of-war over his tongue.

Piper glared at him in his indecision. "You know what? Don't worry about it, Jason. We can take Sean to Alaska all by ourselves."

"That works for me," Reyna said. "That means you can come back to the Roman camp with us."

Piper inhaled sharply and turned around, abandoning the others. It made Jason crazy to see her that way, but he didn't know how to please her and Reyna at the same time.

"Reyna… please," Jason said, exasperated.

"What?" she asked him, pretending not to know. She studied his face for a moment. "Jason, do you like her?"

"Whoa!" Leo cried, who had been standing awkwardly next to Sean the whole time. "At that's our cue to get out of here!" He grabbed Sean by the shirt and practically dragged him away.

"Well?" Reyna questioned accusingly.

"I… this isn't a good time, Reyna." Jason tried to walk away but she caught him by the arm.

"Look," she began, "if you like her or something… I don't care. Juno told you a long time ago that your future was too important to waste away your life on stuff like that. For a while… I thought maybe that could change, but now I see I was wrong. Your life really is bigger than stupid romances. The fate of the world might depend on you, my life included, so don't screw it up."

On that happy note, she turned around and left Jason standing there, feeling absolutely horrible about himself. He'd heard a lot about demigod powers and stuff, but there was one ability that doesn't receive nearly enough attention: the ability that every girl is born with, mortal or not, to make a guy feel like a pile of dirt in a matter of seconds.

"Jason!" Sean called from atop the large bird of prey. "Are you coming or not?"

Jason nodded and ran to the eagle. "I'm coming." He climbed up onto the creature behind Piper. "Sorry," he mumbled to her.

"Just shut up," she replied. With that, the bird spread its giant wings and took to the skies. With Clarisse's blessing, it seemed only a matter of minutes before the bird began to drop.

"This isn't Iris' cabin," Jason observed.

"No," confirmed, Sean. "The cabin is still about twenty miles northwest of here. Why are we stopping?"

"You don't think the eagle could be running out of gas?"Leo wondered.

"He's a bird, not a car, Leo," Piper chided.

"No, I know," he clarified. "I just mean could he be tired? Maybe he's stopping to rest."

Jason looked down at the poor eagle for the first time. He must have been exhausted from all of that flying. It had been selfish not to give him a break before taking off on yet another trip across the country. "I guess we'll have to hitchhike the rest of the way," Jason said.

"Right, because everyone is just going to jump at the idea of giving four mysterious, dirty teenagers a ride. You do realize we look like we're up to no good?" Sean pointed out.

"Do you want to get home or not?" countered Jason. That shut him up. "We need to find a major road or something." As he spoke the eagle thumped onto the ground and the four of them slid down.

"The easiest way to do that is to cut through those glaciers, there. We can find a city and maybe I can get to a phone to call Iris. Unless you guys have some drachmas and I can call her right here," Sean said.

Jason felt in his pockets but knew they would be empty. How could he have been so stupid as to forget something as trivial as a drachma? He looked around and saw that Piper and Leo were wearing the same guilty expression as he was. "Through the glaciers, it is."

Piper glanced nervously at the icy formations. "That looks treacherous. We'd be walking on ice over water. There's no guarantee how stable it would be." As if to prove her point, a hanging chunk of ice cracked off of the rest of its body and plunged into the icy depths far below. Jason shuddered. He could fly well enough to keep himself from falling, but he wasn't sure he could save the others if they fell. "Is there another way?" Piper asked Sean.

"Thirty miles east we can hit the Canadian border."

"Four powerful demigods in the wilderness?" Jason pointed out. "The chances that we don't get ambushed are pretty slim. Why don't we get a closer look, at least?" Piper and Sean nodded, but Leo looked strangely stiff. Jason suddenly remembered Leo's last experience walking across ice—he had melted a bridge in his excitement and nearly killed himself and Jason's sister, Thalia. "If it doesn't look good, we don't have to do it. We can bunker down and fight off monsters until the eagle is ready to move again," Jason added for Leo's sake.

Leo's cheeks pulled up at the corners in a thin smile, almost a grimace. "Let's do this," he said in his most Leo-esque voice.

Together they trudged through the brush until the air seemed to drop twenty degrees and they knew they had hit the ice (as if the slippery ground hadn't been a proper indication). Jason studied the glacier and saw an easy foot path. The ice looked thick and strong, like it had been forming over centuries.

"I say we go for it," Jason said with a chuckle. Since when did challenging situations become easy for demigods? He took a step forward and found that there were plenty of footholds. It wasn't even hard to balance since everything was covered in snow. Though he sunk thigh-deep, walking was hardly even a chore.

Sean followed after Jason, and Piper dared the snow third. Leo took a hesitant step toward the glacier. It steamed in his presence, but there was enough ice that if he moved quickly it didn't matter. Leo walked so fast he left a steaming trail behind him and Jason had to hurry to keep up.

They had almost reached the edge of the glacier when trouble finally arose.

"No," Leo muttered at the sight before him.

Jason could understand Leo's distress, because standing in their way were three old, disgusting women.

"Hello dears," said the one with the mossy old tooth.

"The way we see it," said the one with the eye, "you lost us a great deal of money when you defeated Hypnos. He paid us to cart those demigods around."

"We want revenge," the third woman said. She was holding a long, rusty dagger of gold. That wasn't the worst part, though. The worst part was how the knife was pointed right at the neck of Daisy Allen.


	21. Chapter 21

"Annabeth," Piper sighed, exasperated. She was past being angry about Annabeth's decision to take the gray sisters' eye, but at this moment, she wasn't feeling happy about it, either.

"Let her go!" Leo shouted. "She has nothing to do with this!"

"Leo, you're melting the ice," Sean warned him. Piper looked down, and sure enough, the ice around them was thinning and becoming more slippery.

The woman with the knife smiled and held the blade a little tighter against Daisy's neck, so blood began to bead at the base of her throat.

"Run," Daisy grunted, but one of the sisters jerked her hair back and Daisy let out a short cry.

"We're not leaving," Leo said fiercely.

"Leo! Ice," Piper reminded him. That just made Leo panic, and the ice turned to vapor beneath his feet. He had to walk around so that he didn't melt any one place too quickly.

Jason seemed to be concentrating deeply on some thought. Probably, he was wishing he'd stayed behind with his pretty blonde friend.

"Fine, if you want revenge, kill me," Leo bargained.

Blood drained from Piper's cheeks as she came to a sudden realization. "No, Leo."

"Why not?" he snarled. "I wasn't good enough to go on your stupid quest, but I can at least do this."

"That's not it," Piper cried desperately. "My prophecy, Leo. I don't want it to be you."

Leo's face softened a bit. "It's got to be me," he said. "I'm the friend that has to die."

Piper finally let herself remember those horrible lines of the prophecy: _but when they find the thing they seek… a dear friend's heart will have grown too weak._

Sean approached Leo slowly. Leo peered at the boy cautiously, like he was afraid that he might try to stop him. Instead, Sean did something that no one expected.

Sean knelt down and touched the water that was now pooling at Leo's feet. Then, he pulled out the pendant that hung around his neck.

"Sean?" Piper asked.

"What is he doing!" the gray sister with the eye cried, apparently recognizing the pendant.

"We will kill her!" warned the sister with the dagger.

Sean stood up to his full height, faced away from the sisters so that only Piper, Jason, and Leo could see him, and gave them an unmistakable wink.

"No… Don't take Leo. Take me. This all happened because of me," Sean lied. "I'm the one you want."

"He's right," Piper agreed, not knowing what Sean's plan was, but holding tight to the thought that anyone had an idea. "This is his fault."

"I'm the one you want," Sean repeated, walking slowly to the women.

The sister with sight eyed him warily. Sean was only a foot away when she gasped, like she was seeing him clearly for the first time. She nodded eagerly.

"Release the prisoner!" She told the sister with the knife.

"Why?" complained the third sister.

"Use your noses, idiots, or have those stopped working as well? I smell the sea in this one."

The other two women inhaled deeply, and their grimaces turned into grins.

"Let me see him," the one with the tooth demanded.

The first sister plucked her eye out easily and exchanged it for the tooth.

"He looks like Percy Jackson," the third sister exclaimed when she could finally see.

"Yes, he does, doesn't he?" Jason finally piped up. "This is Percy Jackson's half brother."

The sister with the knife released Daisy, who fell to the icy ground, then picked herself up again and ran/slid to Leo. Meanwhile, the sisters simultaneously reached for Sean with surprising speed. The dagger was already raised, glinting in the sun.

"NO!" Piper shouted. In a moment, several things seemed to happen.

First, Sean made eye contact with Piper. She wasn't sure, but he appeared to be smiling mischievously at her.

Second, the water under Leo's feet moved like rapids toward Sean and the three old women.

Third, the ice under their feet cracked beneath the weight of the rushing water, and the four figures plummeted into the icy depths below.

Just as Sean fell, he tore the pendant from his neck and tossed it to Jason. As it hit the sky, the golden eagle grew into full staff form, and the second it made contact with Jason's skin it began to flicker with sparks.

Piper wanted to go into the water and search for Sean. It was the least they could do, but when she looked at the sharp rocks below, she knew that no amount of manipulation over water could have saved him. Besides, the combination of Leo's heat and Sean's act of selflessness had caused the ice to become unstable. If they didn't move quickly they would all join Sean very quickly.

Jason grabbed Piper's arm.

"Let go of me," she struggled, not wanting him to touch her. His skin sent a shock up her arm, which made her want to be with him even less. His grip was like a vice, though, and Piper could not break free.

"Leo, Daisy, grab onto me before the ice breaks," Jason commanded. They did as he said despite the painful shocks that he sent through them both. When everyone was secure, Jason flew into the air steadily. The golden eagle seemed to give him more control and strength. He lifted them all without a problem, and together they flew to Iris' glass cabin.

The mood was somber all the way to the threshold of the crystalline structure. They were all dreading facing Iris. This was made worse when Iris saw them through a wall and ran out smiling to greet them.

"Hello, children," she said happily. One look at their faces and she seemed to understand.

"I'm sorry," Jason tried to comfort her.

"You! You're the reason this all happened!" the goddess accused him through sobs. "I should never have trusted the son of Jupiter to protect him! Get out!" she shrieked. "Leave! All of you, go!"

Iris snapped her fingers and they suddenly they were surrounded by thick darkness. Piper felt fear well up in her chest. Was this the underworld? Everything felt so cold.

Jason squeezed her hand and Piper wanted to make him let go, but couldn't bear to lose her grip on humanity when she was surrounded by darkness and horrible feelings.

Suddenly, the world became light again, and they were just outside of Camp Half-Blood.

"What just happened?" Daisy asked.

Piper studied the girl. A streak of dry blood was smeared across her neck and her hair was piled messily on top of her head. She looked like she'd been through so much, and Piper could imagine how tired she was after refusing to fall asleep for so long. Piper felt a rush of gratitude for Daisy, for having her life put on the line in a fit of revenge. She didn't deserve any of this.

"Looked like shadow travel to me." Piper looked to the voice and saw Nico di Angelo resting against a large oak tree. "What happened to you guys?" he asked.

They all ignored his question. Instead, Daisy ran forward and hugged Nico. Piper looked at Leo— saw the way his entire body seemed to tense up—and she knew just what he was feeling.

Nico looked over Daisy's shoulder while they embraced, and he looked into Jason's eyes.

He mouthed the words, _"I sense death."_

Piper shivered. She did not like Nico di Angelo.

Jason sighed and mouthed back, _"Later."_ Then, outloud, "We should go inside and talk to Chiron."

Daisy broke from Nico and looked at the large camp with the hint of a smile playing across her face. "It's good to be home."

Part of Piper loved that statement. They were indeed home, but as she looked at Jason, she couldn't help but think, _are you home?_

Instead, she thought about her prophecy as they walked into the camp together.

_From the half-blood haven, three demigods run_

They had indeed left the half-blood haven quickly.

_They travel to the land of the midnight sun_

Check.

_But when they find the thing they seek,_

That had been Percy… or maybe Hypnos? They had been seeking a lot of things.

_A dear friend's heart will have grown too weak_

Sean had not really been a dear friend to Piper in the beginning, but the prophecy never specified _whose_ dear friend. Besides, the number of people willing to lay down their life for her could be counted on one hand.

_Beware, dove's daughter, of the path you desire,_

This line was difficult to think about. That had been a warning from the oracle to be wary of how much she had wanted to be with Jason.

_For more than you asked for, you may find you acquire_

Sure enough, Piper had not asked for a stupid, painful, triangular relationship. She had _definitely_ not asked to be in competition with that pretty little blonde that Jason clearly like. Above all, she did not want to get her heart broken.

_Don't say I didn't warn you,_ said a little voice in Piper's head.

_Shut up, mother_, Piper told the voice.

_Just let me say a few things and then I'll be out of your air. Or head, I guess. _Piper did not reply, which was as good as permission to Aphrodite. _First, I told you so._

Piper was so angry she exclaimed, "If you're going to gloat, you can leave!"

The others gave her a funny look, which she ignored.

_Sorry,_ Aphrodite apologized. _Secondly, I must explain something to you. Sean Slager a son of Neptune._

_ I already know that,_ Piper told her mother.

_Then you'll know that Zeus stripped him of his powers and cast him into the sea to die because he fell in love with Iris. _Piper nodded her head. _Well, as the goddess of love, you can see how I would be angry about this. Love is my domain, not Zeus'. That is why I led him through the doors of Death._

_ You did that?_ Piper asked, astonished.

_Yes, child, I did. He deserved a second chance, and now that the doors are open, this was the best time to let him go. But I did not come to him. I never explained why he was set free, and so he figured the gods were giving him an opportunity to redeem himself. He gave his life because he felt guilty for loving Iris. Because he saved Zeus's—or rather, Jupiter's—son after he took his powers, he performed a deed that cannot be ignored. Hades will not allow the boy to be free after second death if he can help it, of course. So, Zeus must be indebted to those that were with the boy when he died._

Piper's heart began to race as she started to understand. _Zeus is indebted to us?_

_ Yes… Zeus is indebted to you. Each of you may call upon Zeus's help only once, and he will come to your aid. _

Piper smiled at all of the ways she could humiliate Zeus. She could call upon the Lord of Olympus to do her dirty laundry.

_I wanted to warn you, Piper. Life will not become easier for you. In fact, it will become much, much harder. You have been given a wonderful gift. Save it for when you need it most._

With that, the echo in Piper's head was gone and she knew that her mother had left.

"It's them! I see them!" cried one of the young demigods from the big house who had spotted them.

All of the other heroes ran to greet Piper, Jason, Leo, and Daisy, ready to hear their stories. A flash of bright red hair caught Piper's attention and she spun around to see the smiling face of Rachel Elizabeth Dare.

"Nice to see you," she laughed.

"Nice to see you, too," Piper replied.

"Now would someone please tell me what's going on?" Rachel demanded.

Piper groaned, thinking about all that had happened recently. "It's going to be a long night at the campfire tonight, isn't it?"

THE END


End file.
